COHO CATCHES ARE steadily increasing at Sekiu and the prospect of ample rainfall today through Monday stand to further improve those numbers in the coming week.
“We are doing pretty good,” Brandon Mason of Olson’s Resort (360-963-2311) in Sekiu said Thursday.
“Just have to weed through the wild ones a little bit to find some hatchery keepers. But there are plenty around and everybody coming in has found limits the last few days.”
Both Olson’s and Van Riper’s resorts had solid catch totals last Sunday.
Olson’s 150 coho and 115 pinks were caught by 132 anglers in 45 boats while Van Ripers’ south dock saw 85 coho and 69 pinks brought in by 86 anglers in 32 boats.
Mason said the coho catch rate started to increase Saturday, just before the amount of pinks started to thin.
“We haven’t seen any pinks come in on the docks here the last few days,” Mason said.
I’ve written about the last of the pink run a couple of times now, so I won’t go so far as to say this is the last of them, but I’ve always heard coho don’t coexist well with pinks.
They almost try to avoid the humpies altogether, similar to a popular high school senior shunning a precocious freshman.
“Some groups are going out about 30 or 45 minutes, getting their two-coho limit quickly and heading home with smiles,” Mason said.
“Other guys are coming in, grabbing some jigs and heading out to do some bottom fishing in [Marine] Area 4 [Neah Bay].”
“Folks can run from Sekiu to Area 4 and go get lings.
“It’s pretty diversified here and not too far of a run. And the water has been nice.”
The biggest rainfall forecast in months is expected to start today around Western Washington.
Precipitation totals might even hit levels typically seen during winter steelhead season, not the tail end of summer.
“Yeah, that rain should bring in a big flush of coho in and make things even hotter,” Mason said.
Slow going in Port Angeles
Larry Bennett, the head state Fish and Wildlife checker in the Strait of Juan de Fuca, also said the rain will help motivate the coho stocks.
“The coho kind of lay out feeding where they find bait, and the rain can get them moving in from the ocean and down the Strait,” Bennett said.
That’s good news for Port Angeles, which has had a stagnant catch rate since chinook season closed.
Only seven coho were landed by 100 anglers in 49 boats from last Friday through Sunday at the Ediz Hook ramp.
Those same anglers brought in 146 pinks during that span.
“They [city of Port Angeles] put in a new dock section out there, the right side is back to normal, but the fishing effort has been kind of down,” Bennett said.
“But September is traditionally the best month for coho in Port Angeles, so I’d expect things to pick up.”
Bennett should know; he’s been charting fish runs along the Strait of Juan de Fuca since the late 1970s.
He visited Quilcene on Wednesday and didn’t see much of anything on the lower section of the Big Quilcene River (which is closed to recreational fishing).
“There’s a run of summer chinook that come back to Port Gamble Bay [between the Hood Canal Bridge and Kingston], and that same stock comes back to Quilcene, and I didn’t see one fish on the lower river,” Bennett said.
That information, along with other reports that few coho have returned to the Quilcene Fish Hatchery, doesn’t bode well for those stocks in future years.
Bennett has heard of beach anglers picked up some silvers at Point Wilson at Fort Worden State Park in Port Townsend, but it was “nothing too exciting.”
Seiners catching pinks
Ward Norden, a fishing tackle wholesaler and former fishery biologist, came across a spectacle Wednesday while on the Mukilteo-Clinton ferry.
“I noted 17 purse seiners in Everett Harbor right on the ledge where the humpies are trapped due to drought and warm water conditions,” Norden said.
“More seiners were on the way and the area was literally covered with seiner nets.”
Norden believes this commercial fishing action may be the tipping point for landing the species on the Endangered Species list.
“Expect an ESA [Endangered Species Act] petition in two and a half years and a listing in four years,” Norden said.
He said the heat and drought of this summer, sports fishermen and a loss of habitat will be the rationale for the listing.
“The only value those humpies have to the commercial [market] is the eggs which will be shipped to China, while all that meat will likely be dumped unless some buyer wants to turn them into cat food,” Norden said.”
“This is the end of an era for Puget Sound and especially [Marine] Area 9 [Admiralty Inlet].
Rain should help
It won’t just be the depleted rivers and wildfire-ravaged timberlands that stand to be aided by the projected rainfall.
Archery hunters should gain some cover as well when the black-tail deer season opens Tuesday.
“If the weatherman is right about the rain this weekend, archers may actually have the best opening in years,” Norden said.
“The newly wet foliage and the rain tapering off on Tuesday will really get the deer moving for the first time in weeks.
“The deer have been hunkered down close to anything with soft foliage while enduring the hot weather.
“As a former bowhunter of many years, I would be more excited about next week than anytime in years.”
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Outdoors columnist Michael Carman appears here Thursdays and Fridays. He can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5152 or at mcarman@peninsuladailynews.com.
