Puget Sound

speedbird said:
Tips on jig choice? The dart style jigs that slay kings look a little big for coho to me
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Don’t know if my tips on Jig choice are all that great. Buzz bombs seem to work the best, in pink/pearl. Like cripple herrings in blue or pink. With buzz bombs, I replace the treble hook with a siwash hook and swivel.

As they say, your mileage may vary.
 
Gary Knowels said:
0 for 2 this morning. Hooked a really solid fish on my second cast and thought that today was gonna be the day, but my leader broke when I got the fish 10 feet from the beach. That takes the total to 0 for 10 over 7 outings. I feel like a Mariners hitter...
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What lb test are you using for your leader? If it’s light enough that it’s breaking, you have the obvious first-order problem of it breaking, but you might also not be fighting the fish as hard as you should be. I could see letting the fish run a ton rather than putting the wood to it reducing your catch percentage.

I use 15lb maxima, for reference.
 
Gary Knowels said:
0 for 2 this morning. Hooked a really solid fish on my second cast and thought that today was gonna be the day, but my leader broke when I got the fish 10 feet from the beach. That takes the total to 0 for 10 over 7 outings. I feel like a Mariners hitter...
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I use 20lb maxima, as coho are not leader shy. But how old is your leader mono, you can break off a 10lb leader on a 5lb fish if the mono is old. A lesson I learned by breaking off albacore with 30lb mono, and everyone else was not having the problem on lighter mono.
 
NRC said:
What lb test are you using for your leader? If it’s light enough that it’s breaking, you have the obvious first-order problem of it breaking, but you might also not be fighting the fish as hard as you should be. I could see letting the fish run a ton rather than putting the wood to it reducing your catch percentage.

I use 15lb maxima, for reference.
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10 lb STS
 
Bagman said:
I use 20lb maxima, as coho are not leader shy. But how old is your leader mono, you can break off a 10lb leader on a 5lb fish if the mono is old. A lesson I learned by breaking off albacore with 30lb mono, and everyone else was not having the problem on lighter mono.
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It's from last year, there was a wind knot right at the break point about 2 feet up from the fly
 
15 pound minimum. Change leader if knot forms. Check hook and fly after every retrieve. Refresh fly and leader knot after a big salmon is caught or beach strike on back cast. Razor sharp hooks are essential to landing salmon.
 
Gary Knowels said:
It's from last year, there was a wind knot right at the break point about 2 feet up from the fly
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15 lb Ultragreen for me. I confidently fish wind knots and never have fish break off. Honestly I won't fish any leader in any saltwater scenario that I can't confidently fish with a wind knot or three, or a little fray from a shark or other scenario.

No finesse required in this fishery. Nothing wrong with 10 lb STS in general, but there is just no reason not to get serious and fish a leader that could also double as an anchor line for a sizeable boat.
 
As mentioned above I also use 15 lb maxima ultra green. One thing I am very stringent about is removing wind knots from my leader. I am constantly looking for them and the moment I see one I take a few seconds to undo. Not too difficult with 15 lb mono. It took loosing several nice fish to learn my lesson.
 
Wonder what's drawing in all the cetaceans to the sound this year, I have never seen so many in just one season. I've seen whales 6 times in the last 4 years, (Not including time in the San Juans) 4 of those times were this year
 
To re tie or not to re tie- That is the question:
Whether tis nobler in the mind…..

But I digress. Not all wind knots are created equally. For salmon I agree with Nick it is best to use a tippet that can usually handle a wind knot. Still it is best to check a wind knot by pulling on it. Some of them break very easily.
 
Nick Clayton said:
I have a feeling some of you folks would have a mild heart attack if you were to inspect one of my leaders at any given point over a summer sound season lol
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What if it was one of your leaders….but, the loop to fly line was a perfection loop :).

That is my typical leader any given day for coho.

15 lb flouro for me.

Weekend update. I blame a couple of board members for introducing me to gear tactics this year. That’s you @copperJon and @Tallguy! Spent way too much time jigging this weekend with the new reel I bought recently. Caught some nice fish though. Also caught some on the fly as well but not since Saturday. Majority of my time the last two days was spent jigging for bigger fish. Found some. Some with fins I could have kept, but both of us on the boat somehow brain farted the MA we were fishing and let them swim free…ha. Some with fins that rightfully should have been released.

Fun weekend.

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Another fun day with a buddy and his brother today out on the Sound. Nice running into @jasmillo and @Kfish at the boat ramp in the morning. I recognized that seafoam green whaler even in the pitch dark :D.

We covered a ton of water today. I committed to the fly all day, and my buddy fly fished for a while and then mooched with his brother later in the early afternoon. Slow in the first couple spots we tried but I managed to finally get one in the boat on the fly in the late morning. PXL_20240902_153048379.MP.jpg

Decided to make another run and fish where we'd had luck on Saturday. Turned out to be a great move. On the way there we got to see the humpback that's been roaming around the last few days. Easy to spot when the whale watching boat is sitting right on top of it. Here's a super great picture of it's hump. 😄

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We ended up finding a TON of bait when we got to our destination. At one point I motored over to some seagulls going bonkers and rolled up on a massive bait ball of anchovies. Looking over the side of the boat at the bait ball something else caught my eye....there were coho blitzing through the bait. Chaos on my boat ensued as my friends rigged up their mooching rods and I frantically stripped line to make casts with the fly rod. I also broke my buddies fly rod that was sitting in my fancy new rod holders I made 🙃. I ended up going 2-3 on the fly and we got another on the mooching rig in the 15 minutes or so worth of bait and coho crashing the surface around us. The surface chaos subsided, but my friend and his brother mooched up another few fish including a nice one in the 8lb range.

One of the fish we kept from the anchovy bait ball chaos already had half a dozen of these guys in it's stomach before eating my fly.PXL_20240902_221757738.jpg
 
DimeBrite said:
15 pound minimum. Change leader if knot forms. Check hook and fly after every retrieve. Refresh fly and leader knot after a big salmon is caught or beach strike on back cast. Razor sharp hooks are essential to landing salmon.
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This. Missed my only opportunity Sunday as a nice fish hit mine the second it landed and I still had some slack. Was hoping the hook was sharp enough after filing it. Nah.
 
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