Well there was supposed to be a small craft advisory for Neah on monday, however the winds stayed in check and we were able to get some fishing done despite the nice big swells and waves.

The goal: Take some nice hatchery coho home and find out where and when the runs(pink, and coho) will be entering the puget sound.
***We do this every year on this week.

We launched at 6am and headed out around the breakwater to find 4-6 ft swells and some nasty wind waves that eventaully calmed down around 8am. lots of fog and overcast.

6:15 am : It was more then 30 seconds of trolling and we had our first takedown on a slam bucktail trolled on the surface at about 6mph. By 10am we had our limit of 6 hatchery fish between the 3 of us. We had 4 doubles and two triple hookups. We lost alot of fish. The water had calmed by then and was glass. My mom tossed her cookies after all the waves and swells were gone, go figure!

Heres the stats I actaully wrote them down )

32 fish to the boat in 3 hours 45 minutes, 26 natives released. 6 hatchery fish keeped: 3 #6's,2 #7's and one 8#( alot smaller then last years #10's and #12's. Pinks were unmarked so we counted them as part of the natives and didn't keep any pinks. All fish caught on surface trolled flies. *** we did notice a trend with the natives, they were larger then the hatchery fish. Last years fish were much bigger, both hatchery and nates. This tells me the run is a bit behind last years run and also much larger.
Pinks were jumping all over the place.

From the amount of pinks we saw boated by other boats and talking to people at the ramp, the pink run will be huge!

From reports pinks are starting to show around area 8-2 and 9 as well. The main run is still at the west end of the straight of Juan de fuca working its way east. I suspect the pinks will be in thick below mukilteo in the next two weeks.

Resident coho in the smaller range 2-7lb will show up thick around possesion in the next couple of weeks. I suspect those larger fish are still out to sea and will show up during the first couple weeks of september. I will prolly intercept the larger cohos in the lower snohomish, a favorite pastime of late september of mine(if the sno is open...which it should be considering run forecasts).

I also specialize with Lake Washington Cohos in late september, early oct as kid sauk can vouch for.

Anyway, goodluck!
8 ft

8ft. is right the pink run is huge. Went out to Possession yesterday to target coho's and hooked so many pinks lost count. Stayed away from Humpy Hollow didn't matter. They were everywhere. I tried every lure in greens and blues to attract more coho then pinks it didn't matter. Hell I even tried whole herring and the pinks would rip it off the rigger as I dropped the ball. In 3 hours of fishing my buddy and I released around 15 pinks between the two of us. The biggest was about 9 pounds, with a consistent 5-6# average. Big pinks this year. Didn't hook a single coho while we were out there. Go get em guys!

Bobber Down

"Keep your hooks sharp!"

How much weight did you put in front of the fly, and how long of a leader? Did you lay the fly right in the prop wash like I've heard about, or farther back? Does this method still work after the sun comes up, or only in the wee hours?

I've caught fish on plug-cuts, spoons, and hootchies, but nothing on trolled flies yet.

TIA

Mike
Woodinville

Fingerain-
We had take downs right at the end of the prop wash to about 25 yards behind the prop wash. Also it was mostly foggy or overcast, the fishing really never slowed down.

Bobberdown-
Hearing the pinks are all over by posession sounds good. I might have to hit that fishery this week.

I'll vouch for you on the Lake WA coho, 8ft, and we'll see ya out there again this year. Maybe instead of a 6 fish limit, we'll get 12 this year

Want me to ask? lol

I see area 8-2 has a 4 fish limit