THE STANDARD FISHING wisdom is that heavy rains trigger some sort of innate response in salmon, essentially telling all the egg-bearing hens and milt-laden males to find their native rivers and streams and get busy with the business of biology.
And that wisdom worked out, at least for salmon anglers off Sekiu since last Friday’s storm.
“Oh yeah, it picked up,” Brandon Mason of Mason’s Resort (360-963-2311) in Sekiu said of the hatchery coho bite Thursday afternoon.
“Fishing is good out here. Guys are catching fish. A good number of hatcheries but some natives mixed in there, too.”
Mason said the coho are being found predominately in their typical location, out near the shipping lane in the Strait of Juan de Fuca.
“Pretty much out in 400 to 600 feet of water on the not-so-sunny days,” Mason said. “And on the cooler days, they are up high, 25 to 45 feet. On the warm days with sunshine, they are finding them from 50 to 125 feet deep.
And the coho are rounding into form, with many over 10 pounds and some pushing toward 15.
“The coho are getting bigger and bigger,” Mason said. “We have been seeing some in the 12- or 13-pound range.”
Mason said green hoochies and spoons are getting the job done.
“Herring Aid Coho Killer spoons and Dynamites, those have been the go-to lure out here for the last five years,” Mason said.
Mason’s also saw a wedding as Sekiu’s Brian Pankey wed his Canadian fiance Cara (Caldwell) Pankey.
“They were supposed to get married in April and then COVID hit, and she couldn’t come back over [due to travel restrictions],” Mason said. “She was able to fly over and get married. Now they have some paperwork to get through, but they should be able to be together.”
Mason laughed at the memory of the bridal “car” the couple climbed into to begin their married life together.
“The soup cans hanging off of that thing, that I guess you could call it an all-terrain vehicle,” Mason said of the vehicle, which resembled a meter-maid vehicle.
Differing opinion
Jerry Wright of Jerry’s Bait and Tackle in Port Angeles (360-457-1308) said the rains didn’t move coho down the Strait of Juan de Fuca.
“It didn’t seem to,” Wright said. “The guys who I’ve been talking to said it’s been one day good, one day bad. And waves of little ones and then bigger ones. I was kind of surprised. I thought it would push more fish down.
Even out on the rivers [of the West End], I heard of a little shot of fish moving, but not many.”
Wright’s holding out hope for the turn of the calendar.
“From what I’ve seen in the past and going by other fishermen who come in here, September around here is the time it starts. And I remember as a kid, October was the best that was when you could get the big ones. Of course, we can’t fish [salt water] in October anymore.
September will be when it gets going. And any little amounts of rain we get next month, that is what will push fish down the Strait.
But Wright has good advice for these final summer days.
“Get out there, enjoy the beautiful days and remember you can’t catch them if you aren’t on the water,” Wright said. “I think people get so impatient these days, they want to catch a big fish immediately, and that’s not how it usually works.”
Ocean halibut
Tom Burlingame of Excel Fishing Charters (360-374-2225) had a productive run out of Sekiu all the way to the C-shaped Closure Area in the Pacific Ocean south of Neah Bay on Thursday.
“We fished halibut today out in the ocean and it went very well with full limits on halibut and lingcod,” Burlingame said. “We didn’t have any real big ones today, our biggest was probably right around 40 pounds, but we did get a few in the 50- and 60-pound range last weekend.”
That’s even with Burlingame sitting out last Friday’s fishery due to stormy weather.
And Burlingame hasn’t heard much discussion about tuna catches.
“It should be that time of year, although today we were within about 15 miles of where we fished for tuna last year, and the water temperature was still pretty cool at 53 degrees,” he said. I’m thinking having to make the run out of Sekiu is what is limiting that fishery.”
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Sports reporter Michael Carman can be contacted at 360-406-0674 or at mcarman@peninsuladailynews.com.
