San Juan Island Beach Coho

[speedbird]

I am going to be spending most of September doing my capstone project on San Juan Island. Hard to find a negative to that but the only one that comes to mind is missing out on the awesome coho fishing we have closer to home. I was looking for videos on gear fishing salmon from a boat (Just got back from a trip, awesome cruise, but the pea soup the day after we got there made fishing quite scary, only one fish to show for it and he broke my 25lb leader, my drag setting game leaves much to be learnt) and found a brief mention of a popular beach up there fishing decent for coho. Do any of you folks have experience fishing up there? Is it productive enough to anticipate fly grabs?

 

[Cabezon]

I am going to be spending most of September doing my capstone project on San Juan Island. Hard to find a negative to that but the only one that comes to mind is missing out on the awesome coho fishing we have closer to home. I was looking for videos on gear fishing salmon from a boat (Just got back from a trip, awesome cruise, but the pea soup the day after we got there made fishing quite scary, only one fish to show for it and he broke my 25lb leader, my drag setting game leaves much to be learnt) and found a brief mention of a popular beach up there fishing decent for coho. Do any of you folks have experience fishing up there? Is it productive enough to anticipate fly grabs?

Most salmon fishing in the San Juan Islands is from boats. But I do know that folks will cast buzz bombs from South Beach (American Camp) for salmon, especially in pink years (which this is not). One of your biggest challenges is casting far enough out to reach the fish. I suggest that you focus on low ebb tides and the initial turn; the salmon tend to pool between in the back eddy between Cattle Point and Eagle Point on the outgoing tide and then the fish ride the incoming tides along the west side of San Juan on the flood.
Steve