I'm not trying to be facetious here. But, maybe they are already full? I know some parts of the sound are loaded with bait right now. Are their bellies packed when you open them up? It seems to me that a fish with a full gut entering fresh water would get lock-jaw.

But then, that raises the question of fish hunger. Are they more inclined to bite when their bellies are empty or when some mysterious instinct triggers a feeding reflex? I'm sure everyone here has caught plenty of fish that were so jam-packed with bait that it was stuck in their throat cuz there was no room for it to go down......go figure.

:D Firmly planted.

"The results is for many decades we have consistently removed 40 to 80% of the biters from the wild populations annually (even higher exploitation rates on many hatchery stocks)."

Would this then not be true for all systems? Why do they bite in the Columbia and many Ak or BC rivers? they are fished and netted hard in those areas as well.

Smalma is right on on this one.

Its artificial (not darwin's natural )selection at work. If you want hatchery fish that are aggressive in the rivers, have the hatchery workers collect their brood stock by fishing the hatchery holding ponds with spinnners, etc. Only the biters would get to spawn. This might help counteract angling harvest to some extent.

Slabquest, I don't think they're full of food. I mostly fish area 10 and my boat has not bonked a silver with anything in its stomach since the last week of august. They just quit eating this by the beginning of september.

The genetic "unnatural selection" of the aggressive fish seems to make the most sense. In the mid-west, this has been documented with walleye; there are known stocks that don't bite aggressively and others that do. These aggressive and non-aggressive stocks have even been isolated in hatcheries. The average smaller size of Puget Sound coho compared to coastal and Columbia stocks may also be influenced by the heavy historical commercial fisheries in the sound (only the smaller ones got through the mesh). More unnatural selection influenced by fishing.

One other contributor that hasn't been mentioned so far though I think is flow (velocity, not water volume). In my experience, the faster the water velocity you have in a stream, the more likely the fish are to be on the aggressive side. In the Snoho, most of the drifts are large deep glides which move rather slow, compared to the riffle/pools you find farther upstream in the tribs. Likely related to the visibility thing--if the fish sees it coming from afar, it seems to lose interest, whereas if the presentation drifts through the fishes visual area pretty rapidly due to increased flows, the fish is more likely to grab. I've had much better luck fishing higher gradient streams like the Vedder and Sky for coho.

Bringing AK coho down here is a bad idea; these fish are genetically adapted to the cooler climes of more northern lattitudes. Most notably, these fish migrate upstream and spawn much earlier than our fish; down here they would migrate to spawning tributaries in the middle of summer when there is little water and non-optimal temperatures. We futz with the genetics of these fish enough just by fishing for them!

Did you guys miss the part in Smalma's post where he said over 90% of Snohomish coho are wild? IMHO, that kinda shoots down the hatchery theory.

Sure wish I knew the answer...

Great subject, Dave. Unfortunately the coho ain't talkin'. We'll never know why they can be hard to hook. I think that is a good thing as that is why we always come back for more abuse. Ain't called catchin', its called fishin', yada, yada, yada. Its a good thing.

I most respectfully wish to thank Bob for providing this great site. The information here is priceless. THANK YOU!

STIHLHEAD- agree with your hypothesis. Your quote, "Price of silver may go up tomarrow."

silver spot 13:01 EDT, 7.05, +0.36.

"Come to papa,...,baby needs new shoes."

A friend that fished the Snoho last Thursday eve said that fish were jumping everywhere, and, as you say, not biting.

Over the years, I have noticed a lot of truth to the old adage "when you can see fish, you won't catch fish". Is that related to this non-biting question? Are the fish jumping a lot in these other rivers where they bite good?

This whole thing is just too complicated. I get a little dizzy just thinking about it.

I agree with obsessed and the higher flows causing better biters. 2 weeks ago with the higher flows in the Snohomish we hooked several fish by anchoring obove the fish and casting dnites over the fish and retreiving them up stream past them. These fish were aggressive and would hit the dnites as it passed them.

I forgot to mention that the same technique did not work a week later with the lower flows.

Hi

SlabQuest: I think the jumping/rolling fish saying is an old wives tale. When I fish the OP rivers I move from spot to spot looking for jumping/rolling fish. I can't count the number of times I've seen fish jump, role or porpose and have gotten fish. A lot depends on what the river is doing and how long those fish have been in the system. A few years ago I was fishing a hole with a friend from back east. We had fished the hole the day before and got nothing (river was up and fish were moving but hadn't made it up that far). The next day we went back to the hole. He got excited when he saw a few dark Kings (we'd seen them the day before) role. About the same time I saw some fresh Coho Porpose/moving. We spent the next 2 days in the hole banging on fresh Coho. And almost every time fresh/moving fish moved in the hole they rolled, porposed etc and one of us would get a least a strike.

As for the river flows, I think that affects the aggressiveness of the fish more than anything else. Even fish that have been in the system for a while seem to become more aggressive when the water is up and they are moving etc. There is a hole on the Solduc that stacks with fish in lower water. People will fish it early/late in the day and get maybe a few. But those middle hours are usually a waste of time. Get the river up with some color and the hole will produce throughout the day.

Just a few things I've noticed over the years.

Let the RAINS BEGIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The theory on the farther the fish get from the salt, the worse biters they become doesn't seem to hold much water. You get guys who are skunked in the estuaries and lower rivers while fish are jumping all around. As evident in this thread, the guys fishing the snohomish - not considered far from the salt by most standards - are having a hard time finding biters.

Anyway, I catch silvers up high on the snoqualmie, green, sky that are very aggressive - even after turning red. Sometimes I think the closer they get to the spawning beds, the more territorial they get - and strike out of aggression. Anyway- all that just to say I think it has more to do with river conditions than it does distance from salt.

Another thing I haven't seen mentioned here is the concept of 'taking water'. Take any pool or run with salmon\steelhead in it, and there will be places that certain techniques will produce better than others. There may even be places where the fish just won't bite - while a little ways away, the fish are very aggressive. Many times it boils down to finding the biting fish - instead of just casting all day to fish that just aren't interested.

silver market is closed, and what a day it was.

FWIW- I haven't a clue about Wa. rivers and coho, but after fishing the St. Joe R. in Michigan for 25 years I can humbly report that they virtually never hit. During my earlier fishing years which happened to coincide with some of the best andronomous fish returns ever, I often took days off from work to fish. (I know, I know, how irresponsible,...didn't regret it then and I certainly don't regret it now) At that time I knew the person responsible for counting the cohos passing the ladder at Berrien Springs (first dam from Lake Michigan). During the peak years (15 years ago) it was not uncommon to have 400 fish pass the ladder during 24 hours. For all practical purposes, the casual angler not familiar with historical planting data, predicting future returns or even taking the time to observe fish passing the ladder didn't have a clue. I did, and it was of no help. I tried everything from natal green spawn to spinners. Nothing worked; my only rewards were hooking up with some early steelhead, graciously recieved.

As I stated in my above post, I don't know why and quite frankly, I don't want to know why. If fishing for salmon and steelhead ever becomes an equation, balanced with alpha and beta, hedged with dirivatives, give me my Ugly Stick and I'll just go fishing for surf perch.

Best regards to the board.

It's as sure as a bear craps in the woods that coho bite more aggressively on water dropping into shape after running high and dirty. It's also a fact that three days later when the water is low and clear, the same fish will be spooky and finicky.

I gave up trying to figure out silvers a long time ago. They're just wired different. I've fished days on the Chehalis when they'd be jumping around biting nothing and driving you nuts, and then for no apparent reason (no tide change) just fire off on anything you'd throw only to go lockjaw again later in the day.

They're freaks. Because of that, sometimes it helps to throw freaky things like little tiny DN's or a hoochie on a jig head, or a Slug-Go worm, or who knows, it will sometimes get you a fish when nobody else is hitting paydirt.


Stupid fish.

santiago,
Had everyone listened to me, they could be retired and on the river researching why fish don't bite at times. Buy low sell high its very simple :rolleyes:

Dan S, You hit the nail on the head.

Ty

Dan S, your post pretty much sums it up. Silvers can certainly drive a guy to drinken before noon. BURP, BELCH...URG!!!
Ty

STIHLHEAD, message well recieved. Some things never change, and that is a good thing.

At the risk of being booted off this neat site, picked up some 1964 quarters at 4x's face at a country auction last Saturday. Couldn't touch the dimes as they went for 6x's. Halves sold for 8x's. Asked the "successfull" bidders if they wanted more as I have a large inventory of both dimes and halves and I will happily sell at a discount to that they just paid. No takers, unfortunately. The new owners actually looked a little dumbfounded.

Best purchase of the day was buying $38.50 face of bicentenial quarters and halves for $33.00. Apparently, I was the only one who actually took the time to count the damn things. I wonder how the auctioneer is going to explain that sale to his client. $5 paid for my gas.

Well, I am off-topic now, might as well insure getting the"boot". This is important. The auction I attended was in S.W. Michigan. The owner was a small time machine shop. By the time clock on the wall I am sure he was a small time employer. No bids on the lathes and drill-presses. Auctioneer refused to accept ridiculously low bids. Personally,knowing the auctioneer for many years, I ask what is the deal on the machinery. He tells me they have a buyer of last resort. Further inquiry reveals "the buyer of last resort" resides in China. Doesn't surprise me.

To keep this post on topic, I don't have a clue why silvers can be so hard to catch. All I know is that I will continue to try. I love to fish and some of my most memorable occasions have not resulted in killing a fish. Standing in a river, up to my knees, hoping to hook a fish, purges my demented mind of all the noise going on in the world today. Best decisions are made with an uncluttered mind, made a few recently.

Thank you for the reply, STIHLHEAD.

I read an article on fishing Puget Sound that was written in 1929, and it mentioned that the Coho were only 2-3 pounds when they reached Whidbey, and then much more by the time they hit elliot bay, etc.

Interesting thread. Come to think of it, none of the fish I've landed have had much of anything in their stomachs this year, but all have been larger than in years past!