Chum Strength
- Thread starter chrome/22
- Start date
They are definitely targeted by commercial fisheries. The eggs are very valuable.
Hitting the salt immediately versus having a freshwater life history like chinook or coho is likely helpful.
SF
Hitting the salt immediately versus having a freshwater life history like chinook or coho is likely helpful.
SF
The wild chum runs where? I think "where" is the operative word. In WA state, the vast preponderance of chum salmon occur in Puget Sound rivers. And those runs have been depressed for about a decade now. In addition to Puget Sound, fair chum populations also occur in Grays Harbor and Willapa Bay streams, and they could be a lot healthier if WDFW managed them for abundance and not as an afterthought to coho salmon gillnet fisheries. Chum salmon were once fairly abundant in lower Columbia River tributaries, but dam development, levees, and dredging has pretty much wiped out most LCR chum habitat.
And chum populations are heavily fished commercially everywhere they occur: WA, BC, AK, Russia, and Japan.
And chum populations are heavily fished commercially everywhere they occur: WA, BC, AK, Russia, and Japan.
@chrome/22 Where were you getting that info’?
Think it was a fairly recent Seattle Times article? I just read it in passing so may have missed the entire point.
Yeah it was a Times article about 4 days ago. Probably not a well informed post on my part.
Title of article
Why this salmon species, unlike others, is Booming in the NorthWest
Yeah it was a Times article about 4 days ago. Probably not a well informed post on my part.
Title of article
Why this salmon species, unlike others, is Booming in the NorthWest
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I think you did miss an important detail in the main point of that article. As a re-cap- This is how it begins:
“GREEN RIVER, Flaming Geyser State Park — The future is pink.”
Pink Nighty
Legend
A big buck chum in heavy current is both an immovable object and an unstoppable force.
Paige
Wishing I was fishing the Sauk
Chum have a reputation of breaking more rods than any other Salmon species, but fair hooked, they really don't fight all that hard.
A lot of bull dogging as they do a 15' circle, round n round until beached. Now, hook one in the assmouth and your in for an adventure.
I've hooked thousands of Chums from central PS up to SE Alaska. From tidal zones a couple feet from the bay to 35+ miles up river, all the same fight IMO!
Record comercial harvest(direct quote from WDFW Biologist) decimated the PS Chum, all in the name of Ikira back in the early 2000s. Just for Salmon eggs for Japan and the Asian markets, all the while, the carcasses where dumped over board creating dead zones that killed everything that swam into said dead zone!.
The brightest Sitka Chum out of hundreds in summer/early fall 2008, this one was 5' from the bay while waiting for the Beaver to pick us up.
A lot of bull dogging as they do a 15' circle, round n round until beached. Now, hook one in the assmouth and your in for an adventure.
I've hooked thousands of Chums from central PS up to SE Alaska. From tidal zones a couple feet from the bay to 35+ miles up river, all the same fight IMO!
Record comercial harvest(direct quote from WDFW Biologist) decimated the PS Chum, all in the name of Ikira back in the early 2000s. Just for Salmon eggs for Japan and the Asian markets, all the while, the carcasses where dumped over board creating dead zones that killed everything that swam into said dead zone!.
The brightest Sitka Chum out of hundreds in summer/early fall 2008, this one was 5' from the bay while waiting for the Beaver to pick us up.
I've broken 2 rods on chum, usually I just take them out in car doors. But the Chum has my number.
There can be the outlier in the Chum battle, most as stated before will do the lazy 8 after getting hooked till they wear out.
Once I hooked a little chrome hen Chum out of a pod of zombies, she was built like a 7-8 lb steelhead and fought just like one with hot runs & surface thrashing. Once to hand I could see the barely visible purple bars on her flanks.
A really cool fish.
There can be the outlier in the Chum battle, most as stated before will do the lazy 8 after getting hooked till they wear out.
Once I hooked a little chrome hen Chum out of a pod of zombies, she was built like a 7-8 lb steelhead and fought just like one with hot runs & surface thrashing. Once to hand I could see the barely visible purple bars on her flanks.
A really cool fish.
Wolverine
Steelhead
Chum in saltwater fight entirely different than in freshwater. I’ve caught them Puget Sound to Alaska. When they’re a distance away from their home river their appearance and fighting ability are entirely different. The Everett Herald used to have an annual awards ceremony for largest fish by species. I won the largest chum award one year on a chum that I caught on a flasher and hoochie in salt water well off shore from PNP.
We were trolling for coho and and landed that chum. At first we thought it was a huge coho as it was chrome bright. I still have the award plaque around somewhere.
We were trolling for coho and and landed that chum. At first we thought it was a huge coho as it was chrome bright. I still have the award plaque around somewhere.
We don't specifically target chum salmon but encounter them not infrequently when targeting chinook in Tillamook Bay tidewaters. We can always tell when we hook a chum vs. a chinook. In our experience, they tend to pull hard and are slow to tire. Here's Chase from a few years ago with a nice Oregon chum salmon.
That sounds a lot like work.
I'm retired, have the 20 minutes to spare
the_chemist
Life of the Party
Summer chum on the sky? What am I missing?