A GLANCE AT the Pacific Ocean salmon fishery produces a mixed bag of results off Neah Bay (Marine Area 4) and slow fishing and low totals off La Push (Marine Area 3).
“Neah Bay is at 36 percent of its chinook guideline [of 6,200] through last Sunday, said Wendy Beeghley, state Department of Fish and Wildlife fisheries biologist for the coastal region.
“There was 0.5 fish-per-angler average off Neah Bay.”
Beeghley said La Push is at just 6 percent of the 2,000-chinook quota for Marine Area 3.
“And La Push had 0.4 fish-per-angler average for the week ending Sunday.”
Mike Lawrence of Big Salmon Resort (360-645-2374) in Neah Bay said the fishery has been up and down this season.
It’s been so-so,” Lawrence said. “A lot of the time it’s been fishing not catching.
“I just think they are full because there’s so much bait out there.”
Beeghley said the catch has shown a lack of consistency.
“What I’m hearing indicates the fish are pretty spread out,” she said.
“It hasn’t been a big body of fish that are moving through, but more like little pockets that are moving around a lot.
“So, you can go to the same spot one day and do great and then head back the next day and come up empty.”
Garbage Dump producing
Port Townsend angler Brenda Kay Burke passed along a nice shot of two-good sized kings she caught off Neah Bay.
“I caught these two nice chinooks out of Neah bay at the Garbage Dump location on Monday,” Burke said.
“It was hard to get down to the chinooks because the coho’s were so thick, but [we] caught many, many fish and had a blast.”
Burke said their group used spoons to catch the kings.
“The word is that only dog fish [are] hitting bait,” she said.
“It’s been very slow, but we did very well that day.”
Lawrence also said he had a friend who hit up “Midway by the dump, and ended up scooping up some nice kings in the 20s [pounds].”
Lawrence said Big Salmon has been selling a lot of plugs and spoons lately.
“We’ve been selling a whole bunch of King Kandy and Coho Killers,” Lawrence said.
King Kandy are from the Point Wilson line and are a custom bait plug, which mimics the movement of a wounded baitfish.
“White mainly, and the Red Racer, Big 7 size superiors have been working right off in front,” Lawrence said.
“The cop car spoon, too. Anything with some white on it, really.
“And there’s been lots of hoochie fishing in the Strait [of Juan de Fuca], too.
“The 111, the Red Striper and the ultraviolet white, which is also known as the purple haze.
“It makes sense, there’s there’s been tons of squids in their bellies.”
Burke mentioned having to fish through scads of coho to reach the chinook.
I’ve seen similar reports on social media from some guides fishing the area.
But Lawrence and Beeghley aren’t so sure.
“Some guys say they are catching nice silvers, hard to tell,” Lawrence said.
“But I think there’s more shaker kings than coho. That’s the story I’ve been hearing.”
Beeghley agreed.
“We are hearing that coho rumor, but our data is not reflecting that.
“We do ask that question on the docks and the data we are collecting is not showing a lot of coho being encountered. “But the ones they are seeing, they are big.”
She had a theory.
“Sometimes it feels like there’s a lot of coho when you hook into one and it’s good-sized and you have to release it,” Beeghley said.
The coho were big enough in past weeks that some anglers made the mistake of keeping the off-limits fish.
“When coho are big people easily mistake them for chinook,” Beeghley said.
“What that indicates is that there is some good feed out there, some unusually large fish in the ocean.”
She said tuna fishing reports have been pretty much nonexistent off La Push.
“We’ve only seen one trip out of La Push so far,” Beeghley said.
Lawrence said there has been some yellowtail tuna sightings at Swift Sure Bank.
Big run of coho?
Ward Norden, a former fisheries biologist, owner of Snapper Tackle Company, and a Quilcene resident, is predicting an even larger fall coho return than he ever expected.
“My first real number of the season for the fall coho run is in,” Norden said.
“My original projection of 30 percent over last year was wrong. It will be at least 60 percent over last year’s returns to Hood Canal and the [Puget] Sound.”
Norden’s original projections outpaced the expected returns forecast by state and tribal co-managers.
“Apparently, the zone of high plankton productivity that I saw last year was significantly larger than my sources reported,” Norden said.
We shall see.
Grab bag of topics
Four mini-presentations will highlight tonight’s meeting of the North Olympic Peninsula chapter of Puget Sound Anglers.
“Instead of one speaker we will present four mini-presentations or clinics on Fishing Techniques for Freshwater Lakes by Karl Pohlod; “Saltwater boat setup with boat on-site by Dave Croonquist; Terminal gear knots, crimping and knot strength by Glen Humphrey, Walt Blenderman and Sherry Anderson, and All About Shrimping by Bob Keck.
The evening begins at 6:30 p.m. for viewing the raffle prizes and to swap fish stories.
A short club business meeting begins at 7 p.m. and the clinics will follow.
The club meets at Trinity United Methodist Church, 100 S. Blake Ave., in Sequim.
Refreshments will be provided.
A raffle for fishing gear and a $50 membership drawing (members must be present to win) also will be held.
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Outdoors columnist Michael Carman appears here Thursdays and Fridays. He can be reached at 360-452.-2.345, ext. 57050 or at mcarman@peninsuladailynews.com.