Although the peak of the pink salmon season is still a week or two away, success rates were good enough over the weekend and early this week to prompt local anglers to get after ‘em, flat out. The humpies are here, in all the usual places, and it’s time to start nailing your share of the 6.8 million fish predicted by state Fish and Wildlife Department biologists to be heading toward Puget Sound rivers.
Creel sampling by WDFW personnel at the Ediz Hook ramp in Port Angeles on Sunday showed 98 fishermen with 166 pinks. At the Port of Everett ramp late last week, 300 anglers had 21 coho and 184 pinks, while some 58 “surf casters” at North Beach, Deception Pass State Park on Saturday, had 15 fish.
Mike Chamberlain at Ted’s Sports Center in Lynnwood said saltwater action was very good on Saturday and Sunday, at an average of better than 3 pinks per boat. The fish were scattered, Chamberlain said, showing at Meadowdale, Picnic Point, the shipwreck and “humpy hollow,” south of Mukilteo. Shore anglers at Point No Point and on the Whidbey Island beaches — Bush Point, Fort Casey — were also into pinks.
The standard trolling rig, according to Chamberlain, is a size “0” dodger or 8-inch flasher in white or white/pearl, followed by about 12 inches of heavy leader (dodger) or 16 inches (flasher) and a hot pink mini-squid on either one 3/0 hook or a double, 1/0 and 2/0.
The Snohomish River opened on Saturday, and things there weren’t so rosy. “We had some problems on the river,” Chamberlain said. “A fair number of fishermen weren’t paying attention to the regulations which opened the river only up to Hwy 9 and were fishing in closed water.”
The section of the Snohomish from the Hwy 9 bridge up to the forks opens Aug. 16. Chamberlain said it will probably be a couple of weeks yet before there are enough humpies in the river to offer decent fishing, amd added that at about 3 pounds each, the fish seem a little smaller than they were two years ago. Daily limit on the Snohomish is 3 salmon and 1 additional pink, release chinook and chum.
Pinks usually come in a little earlier to the Skagit, and this year seems to be no exception. Kevin John at Holiday Sports in Burlington said the Saturday opener was a very good one, with a lot of limits taken. The action slowed Sunday and Monday, but was still decent, John said, and most of the fish were coming from the section between Young’s Bar at downtown Mount Vernon, up to the Hwy 9 bridge.
Both boaters and bank fishermen did well. Plunkers were using a pink Spin N Glo and sand shrimp, while drift fishermen were scoring on pink marabou or rubber jigs in 3/8- or 1/4-ounce weights.
The Skagit opened upstream to Gilligan Creek, and on Aug. 16 will add the section up to Concrete. Limit is 4 salmon, release chinook and chum, only 2 wild coho.
BUOY 10
The salmon opening on the lower end of the Columbia River over the weekend was a strong one, according to WDFW biologist Joe Hymer in Vancouver. When counting Washington and Oregon anglers, and both coho and chinook boated, in fact, the average of 0.71 fish per person was second only to 1991’s average of 1.22 fish per rod. Creel samples showed 1 king for every 2 boats, and a little under 3 coho per boat.
Hymer said about 35,000 chinook anad 46,000 coho are expected to be caught at buoy 10 this year, and you can follow the daily, and past year’s, Washington sport sampling summaries at http://wdfw.wa.gov/fishing/creel/buoy10/.
Up above Bonneville Dam, meanwhile, anglers at Drano Lake (mouth of the White Salmon River) continued to enjoy hot fishing for summer steelhead, averaging 1.3 fish per rod over the weekend. Some 51 boat trailers were counted there on Saturday.
GET YOUR TICKETS
The annual Edmonds Coho Derby will be held Sept. 12 out of the Port of Edmonds and Bayside Marine, adjacent to the Port of Everett ramp, with cash prizes of $5,000, $2,500 and $1,000 for first through third, respectively. Tickets are available at most area tackle shope and marinas, or online at Edmondscohoderby.com. Separate kids’ division. All entries qualify for the Salmon Derby Series drawing of a 20-foot, fully equipped fishing machine. For information go to the web site or call derby chairman Ed Chapman at 206-372-1196.
BAKER LAKE SOCKEYE
Kevin John says warmer temperatures, bright days and heavy fishing pressure are pushing Baker Lake sockeye to deeper water, and fishermen are countering by fishing the early morning bite, using larger lures and longer leaders (24 inches instead of 12 or 13 inches), and exploring different depths down to 100 feet or so.
“You go down that far, ‘though, and you’re into the timber that wasn’t cut when the lake was formed,” John said.
Most anglers are sticking to depths of 50 to 70 feet and riding out a bite which is off and on, and fishing in general has been pretty good.
The standard rig is a size “0” big ring dodger, chrome or 50-50, or glow (early in the morning), 12 to 14 inches of 40-pound leader or longer, and a 2/0 hook with glow beads and a pink mini-squid.
A recent trap count at Baker Dam showed a total of 26,764 fish trapped to date and 19,209 transferred to the lake. That’s roughly double the 2013 and 2014 numbers.
LAKE WENATCHEE SOCKEYE
There’s good fishing and a lot of sockeye available for the taking, over the hump in Lake Wenatchee. State biologist Travis Maitland in Leavenworth said low, warm water conditions in the Wenatchee River apparently haven’t hampered the sockeye run appreciably, and the count at Tumwater Dam has reached 40,000 fish. That figures out to an available harvest of about 17,000 and counting.
It also means a season which will probably last through August, Maitland said, or while the fish remain in decent shape.
The season opener, July 30, was very productive, he said, with 88 boats counted, mostly limits taken, and about a 3.5-fish per rod average. Fishing remained hot over the weekend, at about 3 fish per rod and 120 to 130 boats on the water.
Wind has been a problem off and on, and the fish have moved deeper – down to 70 or 80 feet Maitland said, but they’re still in good shape. Popular gear is a 2- or 3-hook tie and a hoochie with a smile blade behind a 1/0 or 2/0 dodger. Often, he said, anglers will go with just bare red or green hooks behind the dodger.
METHOW RESTRICTIONS
The WDFW on Tuesday put the Methow on “hoot-owl” fishing hours, midnight to 2 p.m., because of drought conditions. Afternoon water temperatures in the river are approaching the upper limit for trout survival, and the stress of hooking and handling could increase mortality, according to WDFW biologists.
MORE DROUGHT CLOSURES
The same situation as that on the Methow has forced closure, as of Aug. 1, of the Sol Duc, Bogachiel, calawah, and Dickey rivers on the Olympic Peninsula, and all their tributaries. The move is intended to help protech wild chinook and coho.
COASTAL CRAB CLOSURES
Elevated levels of marine toxins in crab tested north to the Queets River has prompted state shellfish managers to add the coastal stretch from Point Chehalis/Queets to the already-closed section south to the Columbia. The closure to commerecial and recreational crabbing on the coast now encompasses more than half of the entire coastline, and includes Willapa Bay, Grays Harbor, and the mouth of the Columbia.
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