They’re coming. They’re coming down the Strait of Juan de Fuca right now, wild-eyed, fangs gleaming in the late July sunshine, devouring everything in sight and looking for more. Soon they’ll cross Possession Bar, hit the shipwreck and turn north toward – gulp! – us. The only thing which can save us from a million ravenous humpies is a small pink Buzz Bomb, or perhaps a red mini-squid – fragile protections indeed but, like garlic vs. vampires, proven over many years of pink salmon menace.
Bolster your talisman supply early, because in a couple of weeks it will be difficult to find anything pink, orange or red in any of our local tackle shops.
Actually, according to biologist Chad Jackson at the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife’s Mill Creek office, the pink run this year to the Snohomish River system is predicted to be a hair under one million salmon, which would just about match the million-fish march in 2001 and fall a little under the 1.4 million humpies that returned during the last odd-year cycle in 2003. That’s a bunch of salmon, and if the prediction proves out, it will provide countless angler-days of healthy recreation through August and part of September in local saltwater areas. It will pull every seaworthy hull – and some which shouldn’t ever get wet – in the Everett area out from under layers of dust in the garage and down to the Port of Everett and Mukilteo ramps, hundreds strong and cleared for action.
The only cloud on the humpy horizon is the nagging concern that this run could be subject to whatever negative factors have impacted some of the earlier stocks returning to state waters this spring and early summer. A few runs – springers on the Columbia, chinook off the coast, sockeye bound for Lake Washington and Lake Wenatchee – have come in far under predictions, and salmon managers hope that doesn’t apply to all our fisheries this summer. Early results from Neah Bay and Sekiu show good, but not great, humpy fishing.
Still, a million fish is a million fish. Even if our pinks show in fewer than expected numbers, there will be plenty to go around, and you can bet on the sound of humpy fillets sizzling on backyard grills this summer.
The first relatively local action will start in a few days, and will be mounted by anglers casting Buzz Bombs, Krocodiles, and other weighted jig-spoons from the westside Whidbey Island beaches at Lagoon Point, Bush Point, and Fort Casey. Other good, early, fishing will be found on the north end of Whidbey, at North Beach and West Beach, both on the “outside” of Deception Pass, accessible through Deception Pass State Park, and on the inside of the pass, from Cornet Bay south to and including popular Ala Spit, near Hope Island.
Port Susan will be closed to pinks this year because of a predicted poor return of Stillaguamish-stock fish, eliminating the popular Kayak Point beach fishery. It will be reopened in time, however, to fish coho there.
Retired state biologist Curt Kraemer said a pink or red, quarter- or half-ounce, marabou jig, hung six feet or so under a float, will probably outfish Buzz Bombs at these beach events, and that weighted red or pink flies, on a floating line, also work well.
Some fishermen with boats will start working schools of pinks at Scatchet Head and on the west side of Possession Bar, but most will wait until fishable numbers of salmon have crossed to the Mukilteo-Edmonds shoreline, centered on the “shipwreck.” The stretch of Possession Sound from Mukilteo to the shipwreck has long been dubbed “Humpy Hollow,” and will be the scene of perhaps three weeks of frenzied pink salmon action for those in big boats, small boats, canoes, kayaks, float tubes, rubber duckies, and almost anything else that will float. One of the most positive aspects of this extremely popular fishery is that small craft can be launched at the Mukilteo park ramp and be fishing immediately. By staying close to the ramp, they then have a quick, safe, exit point in case the weather should turn sour.
Action in the hollow should begin in a week and a half or so, and All Star Charters owner Gary Krein, in Everett, said the peak of the local humpy fishery has traditionally been between Aug. 20 and 25. The north and south ends of the hollow are usually a little more productive than the middle section and, while schools of fish can be found inshore and out in the shipping lane in relatively equal numbers, Krein prefers inshore prospects on a strong outgoing tide, and offshore on a strong incoming tide.
Pinks sometimes roll and fin on the surface in big schools, Krein said, and if you run across a concentration, you can drift and cast jigs to them – either the small, 2-inch pink Buzz Bombs or half-ounce lead heads with pink or red marabou or hoochie skirts.
The standard trolling setup, according to Krein, features a white, size “0” or “1” dodger, or a full-size or mini-flasher, followed by a short leader and a pink or red mini-squid. With the dodger setup, use only 14 to 17 inches of leader and with a full-size flasher go to 20 or 21 inches. The rule of thumb, Krein said, is a leader one and a half to two times the length of the dodger or flasher.
Krein runs his setup 15 to 20 feet behind his downrigger ball and starts the day at a depth of 30 to 40 feet, going deeper as the sun hits the water.
“My premier depth,” he says, “is 40 to 60 feet, consistently.”
Pinks are very obliging fish, staying usually at a depth reachable by anglers without downriggers, at least for the first portion of the morning. By hanging a 6-ounce or 8-ounce crescent sinker on your line, six feet ahead of the dodger, and paying out enough line, you should be able to get down at least 30 or 40 feet to honey-hole depth. Particularly at the slow trolling speeds favored by these smallish salmon.
And that’s a critical factor, according to Krein.
“You have to troll very, very slowly,” he said. “It’s the slowest trolling we do, anywhere in the area, during the year. If there’s one common mistake most beginners make, it’s trolling too fast for pinks.”
Krein said fishermen with boats difficult to troll down should think seriously about putting their motor in and out of gear, letting their tackle drop from time to time. That can be a good technique for everyone, he said, and added that when you hook a fish on one line, leave your other gear in the water.
“Pinks are school fish and very reactive to one another,” he said. “Chances are very good that if you hook one, you can hook another by leaving your second setup in the water.”
Because of the pattern of tidal currents in the humpy hollow area, Krein said 70 to 80 percent of the humpies are caught trolling south, toward Edmonds. The disparity is so pronounced that many anglers pick up their gear at the south end of their drift and run back north to start again.
Logically, you would think that a run of a million humpies would start stacking up off the mouth of the Snohomish sooner or later, before heading on upriver, and so the Pigeon Creek area in south Everett should be a good bet a little later in the period. Not so, according to Krein.
“For some reason,” he said, “whether it’s the fact that they’re adapting to freshwater or whatever, few fish are caught from a half-mile south of the river mouth, up to just below Dagmar’s Landing. You can nail ‘em above and below those points, but very seldom in, or just off of, the lower end of the river.”
The Skagit will host a predicted run of 475,000 pinks, according to Jackson, which is good but not outstanding. The 2001 run was 900,000, by comparison.
The Skagit, Snohomish, and the Skykomish below the Lewis Street Bridge in Monroe will open to pinks on Aug. 16, about two weeks earlier than usual, so that, in Jackson’s words, “fishermen can take full advantage of what should be strong runs of fish.” The Stillaguamish will not open for pinks.
One last point. Pink salmon are not sockeye or spring chinook on the table, but they’re very decent fish on the grill if treated correctly. They tend to soften quickly in summer heat, so it behooves fishermen to be prepared to bleed and gut them immediately, and get them on ice. We all work too hard these days for a salmon or two to allow any of them to go to waste.
PHOTO INFO: Judy drew a fishing map of the “humpy hollow” area south of Mukilteo and Kevin has the proof. I also had one photo scanned for the piece, as follows: Marysville resident Murray Kruse with a larger than usual pink salmon, taken south of Mukilteo during the last odd-year humpy run in 2003
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