SEKIU LIVED UP to the hype last week.
We kept hearing that anglers in Marine Area 5 kept reeling in, and throwing back, native coho in their quest to catch hatchery coho.
The restriction on natives was lifted on Saturday and it was a boon to Sekiu.
Anglers filled the resorts and, in return, their boats were filled with silvers.
“It’s amazing what a wild fishery will do,” Gary Ryan of Van Riper’s Resort (360-963-2334) said, adding that Van Riper’s was filled to capacity.
With more fish in the Strait that are fair game, it isn’t uncommon for anglers to catch their two-salmon daily limits within a few hours, some as quickly as an hour.
“To say the least, it’s been good,” Ryan said.
“I’d say last week was at least an eight on a scale from one to 10, maybe a nine.”
On his grading scale, a “10” is when every person on every boat returns to land having harvested the daily limit.
“It’s like when you go to college,” Ryan said. “It takes a lot to get a 4.0 [GPA].”
With such a stringent grading philosophy, I think most of us would waste no time transferring out of Gary Ryan’s class if he were a college professor. At least the smartest among us would.
Anglers have been so successful in Sekiu that it might be time for a verb swap.
“We don’t even call it fishing anymore,” Tara Hergert of Olson’s Resort (360-963-2311) in Sekiu said.
“We call it catching.”
On Saturday, the day it became legal to harvest native silvers, the state checked 219 boats with 568 anglers at the Olson’s and Van Riper’s resorts.
The combined catch total was 798 coho. That is an average of 1.4 per rod, and 3.6 per boat.
Here are the Marine Area 5 ramp reports for last week:
Olson’s Resort — Monday, Sept. 10: 10 boats with 20 anglers caught 25 coho; Tuesday, Sept. 11: 21 boats with 47 anglers caught 73 coho; Wednesday, Sept. 12: 23 boats with 52 anglers caught 33 coho; Thursday, Sept. 13: 43 boats with 117 anglers caught 86 coho; Friday, Sept. 14: 88 boats with 208 anglers caught 263 coho; Saturday, Sept. 15: 128 boats with 327 anglers caught 430 coho; Sunday, Sept. 16: 21 boats with 55 anglers caught 101 coho.
Van Riper’s Resort — Monday, Sept. 10: 17 boats with 33 anglers caught 28 coho; Thursday, Sept. 13: 26 boats with 56 anglers caught 55 coho; Friday, Sept. 14: 42 boats with 96 anglers caught 121 coho; Saturday, Sept. 15: 91 boats with 241 anglers caught 368 coho; Sunday, Sept. 16: 39 boats with 97 anglers caught 166 coho.
Curley’s/Straitside Resort — Thursday, Sept. 13: 6 boats with 17 anglers caught 15 coho; Friday, Sept. 14: 13 boats with 32 anglers caught 50 coho; Sunday, Sept. 16: 37 boats with 97 anglers caught 160 coho.
Pray for rain
Despite the impending doom of the waters off Sekiu, salmon aren’t in a hurry to leave.
While the Sekiu ramp reports were extraordinarily high, the Marine Area 6 (Sequim, Port Angeles) numbers took a bit of a dive.
Bob Aunspach of Swain’s General Store (360-452-2357) in Port Angeles blames it on the rain, or lack thereof.
“I’m hearing there are still a lot of fish in the ocean,” Aunspach said. “We need rain to get a good push.”
But Marine Area 6 opens up to wild coho, and reopens to chinook, on Monday, Oct. 1.
If a significant rain storm hits around that time, Port Angeles could become the new Sekiu.
“We could have a lot of fish,” Aunspach said.
“We could come out looking pretty good. It might be perfect.”
Ryan said rain would also help Marine Area 5, even though many coho would be moving eastward to Port Angeles and Sequim.
“It would suck more out of the ocean, too,” Ryan said.
The Marine Area 6 ramp reports:
Freshwater Bay — Tuesday, Sept. 11: Eight boats with 12 anglers caught 11 coho; Friday, Sept. 14: Five boats with seven anglers caught six coho.
Ediz Hook — Wednesday, Sept. 12: 22 boats with 40 anglers caught 51 coho; Thursday, Sept. 13: 24 boats with 44 anglers caught 38 coho; Friday, Sept. 14: 29 boats with 51 anglers caught 26 coho; Saturday, Sept. 15: 36 boats with 81 anglers caught 53 coho; Sunday, Sept. 16: 40 boats with 88 anglers caught 24 coho.
Port Angeles West Ramp — Saturday, Sept. 15: 26 boats with 57 anglers caught 39 coho.
John Wayne Marina — Sunday, Sept. 16: Four boats with nine anglers caught zero coho.
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Outdoors columnist Lee Horton appears here Thursdays and Fridays. He can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5152 or at lhorton@peninsuladailynews.com.