After another wasted weekend trying to find some silvers in the sound, I'm ready to give up and pack it in until blackmouth season, unless the coho fishing is holding up at CQ.

I'm thinking about going up there weekend. Any words of wisdom from recent fishers up at CQ??

Thanks,

Chip Goodhue

we were there Tue-Thur. last week. In just over two days of fishing our two boats landed 82 silvers. They were all 6-10lbs with one 14lber. We probably lost as many as we landed. The ratio was about 7-8 wild for ea. hatchery.

Went up Friday night and fished Saturday and Sunday until noon. According to locals, the fishery slowed dramatically on Thursday due to weather. Saturday was okay(CQ standards), but water was rough in afternoon and hampered efforts. Sunday was good and we landed plenty. Our most productive lure was a B-2 glow squid. Landed coho up to 10-12lbs, but lots of small shakers. I'm going up again this weekend. You live in Kitsap County? Why wouldn't you go?

Chip,

Go to CQ, there are plenty of fish still there. I fished there last Friday and Saturday. It was kind of rough but the action was non stop out in the shipping lanes. I was happy that the wild/hatchery ratio was about 50/50. Released some 10+ pounder wilds and there were lots of 6-8 pound hatchery fish. Couple of 12 pound hatcheries were nabbed at 50 feet down, about 5 miles out.

Chip,
I concur with other people's reports although we didn't catch anything Saturday mostly due to the weather (I fish out of a smaller boat and pulled off the water early). Sunday was very good. For us the ratio of wild fish to hatchery fish was 5 to 1. Wish I could make it back up there this weekend.

Seacat.....when you say shipping lanes how far out is that in terms of water depth. We did well in 475 to 575 feet so didn't venture any further from shore.
JMS

Sounds like a good bet, and the forecast looks nice, so my younger son and I are headed up on Friday.

ET, the reasons for not going are: yard work, soccer games, science projects, firewood splitting, house painting, window washing, older son's 13th birthday party, moss on the roof, my spouse, my mother in law (when she hears), etc. .............

Ah, but the pull of the ocean is too strong, gonna go for it anyway- God help me!

Little Fish,

It's kind of funny about the depth thing because I never even turned my finder on! I used my GPS and monitored how far from Sekiu I was. I fished pretty much due north anywhere from 3-6 miles out. Because it was a morning ebb tide, I started over by Slip Point and just started heading north and eventually ended up out in front of the Sekiu river. My guess is that's the 600+ depth water out there.

For me the trick was to get the bait to 50 feet and adjust my speed to 3 to 4 knots. Faster was better.

Go to sekiu,had lot's of fun last saturday and sunday.Landed around 40 fish took home 18.
Good luck,
STRIKE ZONE
P.S. Green/Glow large hot spot flasher three and a half feet of 40lb ultra green to a smaller 4"
green hoochie with chrome twinkle skirt out fished every thing on the boat.

See you up there! Camping at Coho Resort. Arima Seahunter "Salmon Seeker" with Black top. I concur with 11" green/glow hotspot flasher with squid fished at 50-60'. At least that was last weekend! Good luck!

Me and the Mrs. fished CQ Sat-Mon. Wow, Sat just beat the snot out of us, but we did catch our fish. I was suprised that I was catchin' those buggers down to 40-50 ft??? In the "old days" of Pillar Point fishin', 2oz and 15 pulls was all that was needed. I was disappointed in the size of the fish though, big was 9.5 and the average was 7 pounds. I was hopin' for some hooknosed like we were catchin' in the Columbia, but maybe a bunch of "small strain" hatchery fish have showed up. We did best in the 600 ft range between Pillar and Slip Point. Probably going back this weekend. By the way, we used herring and a small flasher, jeez, I hate having a flasher on the line!

Any open seats?

Yes, I am a boat whore, but I can change. If I have to. I guess.

You know it's funny to see what is the hot setup for everyone. For SZ it was the green hooch, ET's was the B-2 squid, when we were up there the 11th - 15th hardware outfished everything. Cop Car Coho Killer, blue/chrome Canadian Wonder, and the star of the weekend was a spoon I bought at a garage sale from an 80 yr old guy that had to quit because he broke his hip called a "freak". Although the biggest fish (15/16 lb buck) hit a army truck hooch behind a green/glow Hot Spot Friday morning. I can say we caught fish on everything, flashers/hooches, flashers/flies, straight herring, fish flash/herring, straight spoons, and fish flashe/spoons. Although the fishing was so good on Sunday morning I think you could have trolled a pop tart and caught fish!!!
Good luck and tight lines, Jeff

Jeff and others,

Is there a setup that doesn't work in Sekiu? jk!

Does anyone think that there is a particular setup/technique that consistantly catches bigger fish vs a setup that catches smaller fish? While I was up there this last weekend, the flies and spoons were nabbing small ones while herring was accounting for the bigger ones. Is this your experience or is it all just kind of a big crap shoot? In other words, can anyone catch a slab on anything?

Our biggest fish last weekend came off a large red / glow hot spot with a home made fly.The fish was a 32lb buck king,it was released unharmed.Good luck,
STRIKE ZONE

Seacat,
That was my experience too. Herring behind a large Hotspot accounted for all of our larger fish. Switched to spoons and only picked up the little ones. BTW, I love using those bate-hoods....sure helps the bait last longer and you get a good roll every time (I think I learned that trick from one of your past posts...thanks).
JMS

The bigger fish we caught at CQ were mostly caught on chartruese and black flies.

Interesting, I guess you never know out there what's lurking and what they want for dinner.

Hey Strike Zone, I'm curious, were you in close, fishing shallow or what when you hooked into that King?

Hey Chip, you got a report for us?

CQ Report for Saturday - Left the dock at Olson's at 6:15 with the armada, every body and his brother was there. The fog bank out a mile stopped most of em. Proceeded out north around five miles and put the lines in. Fishing was pretty good, with a fish every five minutes or so, had three doubles while my first mate (my 11 year old son John) was sleeping, that was interesting. Woke John up for the last double and thats when the trouble began, as he promptly got seasick (even after a morning dramamine). I tried to convince him we were headed in but he caught on quick that we were going around in circles, and still catching fish!! Was back at ten, put the boat on the trailer and went home. Managed somewhere around 20 natives and 3 hatchery fish. In general, the fish were smallish, biggest fish was around 14 pound native. Don't know how the rest of the pack did, but the radio talk suggested it was spotty, especially inside. The fish I kept were all hens with empth stomachs and loose eggs - these fish won't be long for the salt once the rains come.