The south end of Lake Washington looked like a marina at about 9 a.m. Saturday morning, as a huge crowd of salmon anglers, estimated by the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife at an incredible13,800 folks, inaugurated the 2004 sockeye season on the urban pond.
Although, it took most of the morning for anglers to find the salmon concentrations, by the end of the day, state creel checkers estimated the total catch at just under a salmon per rod. That left enough fish to open another one-day caper – scheduled for Saturday – which will almost certainly wind up as this year’s edition of The Great Sox Circus.
Most observers noted that results were a lot more positive in the south end of Saturday’s fishery than they were up around the mouth of the Ship Canal or the Highway 520 bridge. The south tip of Mercer Island put out a lot of fish, as did the south end of Seward Park.
“My customers mentioned that the area just south of the launch ramp at Rainier Beach was excellent,” said Jerry Beppu at Linc’s Tackle (206-324-7600) in Seattle. “But the crucial factor seemed to be the trolling speed, or rather lack of trolling speed involved. Most of the people having trouble catching fish were probably going too fast.”
Beppu suggested a size “0” chrome dodger with scalelite, 9 to 12 inches of leader, and either a bare red hook or a U-20 Flatfish in fluorescent red or silver. For those without downriggers, Beppu said an 8-ounce crescent sinker should get your gear down to a reasonably effective depth, particularly early in the morning.
“Guys were starting out first thing at 35 to 40 feet,” Beppu said, “then going down later to between 70 and 90 feet.”
Currently, the predicted run size is up to 403,000 sockeye. Subtract the spawning escapement goal of 350,000 fish and split the result between recreationists and tribal commercials, and you end up with 26,500 salmon each. The tribal take has also been carefully monitored, according to state biologist Steve Foley at the Mill Creek office, and should end up pretty close to the sport harvest.
“The Muckleshoots plan to fish in Lake Washington tonight (Wednesday) for about 6,000 fish, and that should pretty well wrap it up,” Foley said.
All the rules for Saturday’s upcoming recreational fishery remain the same: one hour before sunrise to one hour after sunset (4:41 a.m. to 9:50 p.m.); two fish limit; adult sockeye only; all other salmon species must be released; stay 100 yards off the floating bridges, and 1,000 feet off the mouth of the Cedar River at Renton; anglers must have a freshwater fishing license and a salmon catch report card.
Lake Wenatchee sockeye: Local sockeye buffs will be forced to flip a coin, with the announcement yesterday of a recreational season on Lake Wenatchee, also set to open Saturday. Madonna Leurs, state spokeswoman in the Spokane office, said the season will open at sunrise, with a two-fish daily limit, barbless hooks, no night fishing, no non-buoyant lures (a single hook is okay, Luers said, even though it’s non-buoyant, as long as it’s barbless). All bull trout must be immediately released, without taking them from the water.
Additionally, there are some 260 study sockeye in the lake equipped with yellow dorsal tags, which must also be released.
Luers said there are about 27,000 sockeye in the lake at this point, and that the escapement goal is 23,000. That leaves 4,000 harvestable fish, Luers said, and the season will continue until those are taken.
The fishery is a popular one, not least because of the scenic setting at the upper end of the lake, off the mouths of the two major tributary streams. The main launch is at Lake Wenatchee State Park, on the south end of the lake, with another rough facility on the northwest corner.
Setups and techniques are about the same as those used for Lake Washington sockeye, with most of the fish taken between 40 and 80 feet deep.
Baker River sockeye: The fishery at the mouth of the Baker River (in the Skagit from a point 200 feet above the Baker downstream to the Dalles Bridge, and in the Baker from its mouth up to the Highway 20 bridge) remains off and on, said Bob Ferber at Holiday Market Sports in Burlington. Friday and Saturday were relatively productive, while action slowed on Sunday.
“A couple from Seattle fished it all three days and landed seven sockeye, from 4 to 8 pounds,” Ferber said. “They were drift fishing size-14 corkies in rocket red, with small sand shrimp.”
Upper Columbia chinook: The summer chinook fishery on the upper Columbia opened last Friday to really hot action, but has since slowed, according to Brewster resident and guide Rod Hammons (509-689-2849).
“The opener was smokin’,” Hammons said, “both below the mouth of the Okanogan and below Wells Dam, the two usually most productive areas. Somewhere around 90 kings were weighed Friday at the Texaco (local fishing headquarters) and I’m sure there were a lot more that weren’t weighed. The largest was 32.5 pounds.”
Heavy pressure, even during nighttime hours, forced the fish off the bite for the remainder of the weekend, Hammons said. Only about nine fish were weighed Saturday, and fewer than that were taken on Sunday.
“I look for fishing to pick back up as fresh salmon arrive and pressure drops off to more normal levels,” Hammons said.
Coastal salmon: A curiously slow season continues for salmon fishermen out of Westport, with success rates well below what had been anticipated before the fishery opened. Charter averages are running about one fish per rod, said state creel program supervisor Wendy Beeghley, with about 70 percent being coho and 30 percent chinook. The silvers are nice fish, however, going 8 or 9 pounds on the average. Water temperatures off Westport in the 62- or 63-degree range have been blamed for the relatively slow fishing.
At Ilwaco, last week’s checks showed about 1.7 salmon per rod, the vast majority coho.
The state will liberalize the seasons on Friday, opening both Marine Area 1 and 2 (Ilwaco and Westport) to seven-day-per-week fishing. Anglers had been confined to a Sunday-through-Thursday schedule at this point.
Bear: Arlington resident and avid outdoorsman Sam Ingram said he had been scouting Green Mountain east of Granite Falls for the Aug. 1 bear hunting opener, and found berries already overripe and starting to dry up at lower elevations.
“I would suggest looking at, say, 2,000 feet or higher for viable berry patches,” he said. “And, very early in the morning, or at dusk, will probably be the only productive hunting times if this hot, dry weather continues.”
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