Coho bountiful off park at Kayak Point

Want to fish salmon but don’t have a boat? One of the more exciting fall salmon fisheries in this area is the one from the beach at Kayak Point County Park for Stillaguamish-bound coho.

John Martinis at John’s Sporting Goods in Everett (425-259-3056; www.johnssportinggoods.com) says the first three weeks of October are prime time to catch fresh, acrobatic silvers in only three to five feet of water.

High tide tends to bring these fish “in,” so anglers are at the park ready to fish at least two hours before the scheduled high, Martinis says. The better part of the area is the south portion of the park, and when fish are present, they should show by rolling or jumping.

Kayak Point silvers are too close to their spawning river to be interested in herring, so forget the bait. The two most popular lures are a 2 1/2-ounce Buzz Bomb in pearl or pearl/pink, and a half-ounce Krocodile spoon in chrome with a scale finish or white with pearl scale.

Martinis recommends fishing these lures with a medium-action spinning rod, and reel filled with 10-pound test line. The fish are usually close to the beach but, to avoid dropping a jig right in the middle of a pod and chasing them to Greenbank, it’s best to cast beyond the schools and jig back through them.

Work Buzz Bombs with a soft jigging motion as you reel them back. Krocodiles can be retrieved with a steady speed that keeps them just above the bottom.

If the park is too crowded for your taste, and you have a small boat, you can launch on the north side of the point and run south to any of the small bays between Kayak and Tulalip. Martinis says coho school in several of these bays, and the technique is to cruise slowly until you see fish showing. Once you spot a school, anchor and cast as you would from the beach. Again, high tide is the period of choice, and the fish will be relatively close to shore.

“Avoid the temptation to troll for these coho,” Martinis says. “As shallow as they are, you’ll spook every fish in the area.”

The daily limit is two adult coho, and you’ll need a saltwater license. Take the Marysville/Tulalip exit off I-5, head west through Tulalip on Marine Drive for about nine miles. Watch for the park sign on your left.

There’s a small fee to enter the park, so bring some dollar bills to feed the machine.

Snohomish River coho: The silver bite on the upper Snohomish, which had been both sporadic and a little on the slow side, finally kicked into gear about the middle of last week. Action was hot Thursday and Friday, and very good over the weekend. Vibrax spinners (No. 3 is a popular size) and small, thin-bladed spoons drifted along bottom with lead, just like steelheading, is a good way to go. Buzz Bombs, cast from the bank, also will take fish, but getting caught snagging fish illegally can be expensive.

Local trout: Fall trout fishing always picks up with the first rains and dropping water temperatures. Everett Steelhead and Salmon Club member Jim Brauch recommends Goodwin, Blackman’s, and McMurray, among others.

Hanford Reach kings: The chinook fishery on the mid-Columbia in the vicinity of the Vernita Bridge has been relatively slow so far, with creel checks running about a fish for every five or six rods. But remember, this is a legitimate opportunity to find yourself nose-to-nose with a 40-plus-pound king salmon.

Yakima River salmon: The return of salmon fishing to the Yakima basin, thanks to a several-year cooperative effort between the Yakama Nation and the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, has been relatively successful. Fair fishing is available currently on the lower Yakima, where 121 anglers were checked recently with five chinook and five coho. Nothing much is happening yet on the Naches River, or the Ellensburg Canyon stretch of the Yakima.

Cougar and hounds: By a 5-4 vote, the Washington Fish and Wildlife Commission adopted a plan on Friday to issue a limited number of permits for cougar removal with the use of dogs, addressing public safety needs. The vote authorizes 74 cougar permits in the 17 game management units that had the highest public safety complaint levels in 1999 – primarly urban areas around Puget Sound and Spokane.

The state will announce the procedure for applying for a permit late this month, and begin accepting applications from licensed hunters in early November. The deadline for application is Nov. 15, and cougar removal will begin Dec. 16.

Commissioners voting for the proposal were chairman Kelly White, Kettle Falls; Russ Cahill, Olympia; Don Heinicke, Wenatchee; Will Roehl, Bellingham; and Fred Shiosaki, Spokane. Voting against the plan were Lisa Pelly, Bainbridge Island; Dawn Reynolds, Pullman; Bob Tuck, Selah; and R.P. Van Gytenbeek, Seattle.