Puget Sound

2/4 for me in a quick morning session at the Big Beach, one unclipped released.

Lots of catching during one particular window, all looked fairly cookie cutter size including mine, no jumbos (“should have been here yesterday” for the 8lbers was the chatter, but that’s always the chatter).

The unclipped fish was a bit of a slouch, which was good because I hooked it right at peak container ship wake.
 
Burt Dagger said:
They were around the big beach again, although more sporadically. I went 1/4, cookie cutter caught, two brutes lost after long enough fights to make it truly disappointing.

Watched @jasmillo and @Kfish drift smugly by in a watercraft at one point, I bet they did ok.
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I was 1/2 this morning, lost a big fish boat side and released the second one since it was on the smaller side.

Then it was really slow for us until close to noon when I had to go, we jigged for a bit. @jasmillo had the hot jig, he had a bunch of hookups within 15 minutes. We kept one coho, the others were unclipped.

We should have focused on jigging there earlier and not waste time at other spots, but that’s fishing for you.
 
Kfish said:
I was 1/2 this morning, lost a big fish boat side and released the second one since it was on the smaller side.

Then it was really slow for us until close to noon when I had to go, we jigged for a bit. @jasmillo had the hot jig, he had a bunch of hookups within 15 minutes. We kept one coho, the others were unclipped.

We should have focused on jigging there earlier and not waste time at other spots, but that’s fishing for you.
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Yeah, we really should have done that earlier. More fished hooked in that 15-20 minutes than the previous 5 hours.

Then Lou had “responsibilities” and had to go spend time with his family and leave that hot jig bite.

Can you believe it? Left a hot jig bite right smack in the middle of it. Just so he could be a responsible and present family man! Pfff… 🤣.


Kidding of course. Even someone who’s childless like myself understands family priorities.

The jig bite was solid though. Little mini jaws’s down there chipping the paint job off my jig.

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Matt B said:
Where were the coho this morning? Not by me. Dead, dead, dead out there. I would’ve settled for a silver, but nothin’.
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I can report that some of the coho were around 60 feet of water at first light, chasing small surface bait under the cover of seagulls. I lost them after keeping one coho, then found them again in 500 feet of water next to a very large and dense weed/flotsam line that also attracted some exotics, such as this giant black drum and all the ecosystem attached to it. That line also atracted a new toy for the puppy. Kept a cookie cutter 5.5 lb hen (early) and later on deeper water a feisty 28 incher/~9 lb buck (weighted 8lb 11oz at home after loosing it's head to the WDFW samplers, even if the adipose fin was larger than my thumb still had a CWT tag). I saw 3 other boats fly fishing today, one with two other forum members, another named "T... Wife" and another unnamed dark blue smallist aluminum boat. Stayed away from most people, lots of purpoises on herring and a sea lion that fought a large coho and lost it after smaking it a few times, looks like coho do coho-escapist stuff not only for fishermen. Cool to see other people away from the trolling horde/circus!

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jasmillo said:
Yeah, we really should have done that earlier. More fished hooked in that 15-20 minutes than the previous 5 hours.

Then Lou had “responsibilities” and had to go spend time with his family and leave that hot jig bite.

Can you believe it? Left a hot jig bite right smack in the middle of it. Just so he could be a responsible and present family man! Pfff… 🤣.


Kidding of course. Even someone who’s childless like myself understands family priorities.

The jig bite was solid though. Little mini jaws’s down there chipping the paint job off my jig.

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I’ve always said that having kids is fishing’s equivalent of an ACL tear in other sports. Yeah, you might rehab and eventually make it back onto the field, but you’ll never be the same athlete you were before.
 
VMP said:
I can report that some of the coho were around 60 feet of water at first light, chasing small surface bait under the cover of seagulls. I lost them after keeping one coho, then found them again in 500 feet of water next to a very large and dense weed/flotsam line that also attracted some exotics, such as this giant black drum and all the ecosystem attached to it. That line also atracted a new toy for the puppy. Kept a cookie cutter 5.5 lb hen (early) and later on deeper water a feisty 28 incher/~9 lb buck (weighted 8lb 11oz at home after loosing it's head to the WDFW samplers, even if the adipose fin was larger than my thumb still had a PIT tag). I saw 3 other boats fly fishing today, one with two other forum members, another named "T... Wife" and another unnamed dark blue smallist aluminum boat. Stayed away from most people, lots of purpoises on herring and a sea lion that fought a large coho and lost it after smaking it a few times, looks like coho do coho-escapist stuff not only for fishermen. Cool to see other people away from the trolling horde/circus!

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I wonder if you can find out what program that fish came from? It would be interesting to see if bigger unclipped wire tagged fish like yours are coming out of hatchery or net pen releases. My guess would be hatchery but who knows?
The Muckleshoots CWT 50k of the unclipped coho they release from the Elliott Bay net pens. They do that in other programs as well so not that uncommon to get a unclipped fish with a CWT. That used to happen even back in the 90’s when they actually still did regular beach creel checks.
SF
 
Stonedfish said:
I wonder if you can find out what program that fish came from? It would be interesting to see if bigger unclipped wire tagged fish like yours are coming out of hatchery or net pen releases. My guess would be hatchery but who knows?
The Muckleshoots CWT 50k of the unclipped coho they release from the Elliott Bay net pens. They do that in other programs as well so not that uncommon to get a unclipped fish with a CWT. That used to happen even back in the 90’s when they actually still did regular beach creel checks.
SF
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Yes.

wdfw.wa.gov

Coded Wire Tag Program

Image
wdfw.wa.gov wdfw.wa.gov

At that link there is a lookup tool where you can put in the bag tag number and it will tell you where the fish came from. Just make sure you ask the fish checker to show you the tag and take a picture of it (or note down the number some other way..). They take a few weeks to process the tags, but the data shows up eventually.
 
Chucker said:
Yes.

wdfw.wa.gov

Coded Wire Tag Program

Image
wdfw.wa.gov wdfw.wa.gov

At that link there is a lookup tool where you can put in the bag tag number and it will tell you where the fish came from. Just make sure you ask the fish checker to show you the tag and take a picture of it (or note down the number some other way..). They take a few weeks to process the tags, but the data shows up eventually.
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Did you get the number of the fish yesterday?
 
Chucker said:
Yes.

wdfw.wa.gov

Coded Wire Tag Program

Image
wdfw.wa.gov wdfw.wa.gov

At that link there is a lookup tool where you can put in the bag tag number and it will tell you where the fish came from. Just make sure you ask the fish checker to show you the tag and take a picture of it (or note down the number some other way..). They take a few weeks to process the tags, but the data shows up eventually.
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Cool!
I still have a letter around here somewhere that WDFW mailed me back in the 80’s identifying the origins of a MA 13 coho I caught.
SF
 
Irafly said:
Did you get the number of the fish yesterday?
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Yes. That one was a clipped fish.
Stonedfish said:
Cool!
I still have a letter around here somewhere that WDFW mailed me back in the 80’s identifying the origins of a MA 13 coho I caught.
SF
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I have quite a few of those from when they used to offer to take your name and address and mail you the info. It was nice, but that part of the program died in budget cuts or something. I have a file with a couple of dozen entries that I have looked up from the online database.
 
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