ANYONE LOOKING FOR a silver bullet better stick with the golden rice beer.
Because the North Olympic Peninsula summer king salmon fishery certainly hasn’t produced any.
Here we are several weeks into the season, and most anglers still can’t pinpoint one go-to hotspot for chinook. (Assuming, of course, that they’d actually tell me.)
Perhaps the closest thing to it has been Swiftsure Bank in Marine Area 4 (Neah Bay).
That little fishery, situated a few miles west of the Strait of Juan de Fuca, just might be the most consistent king producer on the Peninsula.
“It seems like a broken record,” Joey Lawrence at Big Salmon Resort (360-645-2374) in Neah Bay said. “Pretty strange.
“I’ve never seen Swiftsure stay as good as it has for so long. I don’t know if that’s because that’s where all the feed is balled up at or not.”
Whatever the case, it appears to have been the best of a so-so lot during the past few weeks.
“As far as consistently, that’s the only place [in Area 4],” Lawrence said.
“There’s been other places down south, a little south of Umatilla [Reef], but that’s kind of been off and on.”
The same can be said about the myriad of salmon holes in Area 3 (LaPush).
The southern end near the mounth of the Queets River has seen some great days and bad ones, as has the waters to the north.
Meanwhile, the Rock Pile has been consistent only in that it has been consistently poor.
“For some reason, them things are just hanging out in the deep until they get down by the Old Man [about 10 miles south of LaPush],” Randy Lato of All-Ways Fishing (360-374-2052) in LaPush said.
“And then they start working their way into the shallows.”
Lato and a few other boats scored their fair share of salmon in those areas last Saturday. (As did anglers in several other Area 3 fishing locations last weekend.)
Yet a few days later, “It’s a desert down there.
“We were down there two days ago, I got a king and a silver and [charter boat captain] Jim [Richeson] got a king and a silver. That was it.
“It was just a desert — no birds, no bait, no whales.”
Strait fishing
So it has come down to this inside the Strait: three days to conquer thee kings.
Marine Area 5 (Sekiu) and 6 (eastern Strait) are set for one last weekend of chinook fishing before the summer season comes to an end Sunday.
Given the up-and-down nature of this year’s fishery, it’s hard to know what to expect for the grand finale.
“Overall, I think it’s been very inconsistent [this summer],” Bob Aunspach of Swain’s General Store (360-452-2357) in Port Angeles said.
“The water is just really dark from all the algae and whatever is going on because the water temperature is so warm. I think that’s affected the fishing and the bait as to where they showed up at.
“There might be individuals that had a better year this year than last year, but overall it just hasn’t been as consistent.”
Whether it be in shallow water just offshore, or in the deep stuff out in the Strait, schools of chinook have bounced all over the water in front of Port Angeles, Aunspach said.
“They are all over the place,” Aunspach said. “They are not sitting in the traditional water tables on a consistent basis. It’s been select spots here and there.”
Area 5 has had its share of mystery as well, according to Chris Mohr of Van Riper’s Resort (360-963-2334) in Sekiu.
After a number of productive days during the past two weeks, anglers were thrown off kilter by a thick fog in recent days.
That being said, there have been a number of nice-sized fish coming out of Sekiu, including a solid number of 30-plus-pound kings.
“I just can’t get my finger up around . . . what’s going on,” Mohr said. “Catches have been down the last couple of days, but I don’t know if that’s [because of the fog].
“[Thursday] the land-and-catch was about three-tenths of a fish per person. But it’s been running higher than that [before that], up to a fish a person.”
After Sunday’s final king opener, the focus will shift toward the coho, which have yet to make much of an impact inside the Strait.
“I think what will happen is we’ll see a lot more coho after [Sunday],” Mohr said, “because right now everybody is targeting the chinook.”
Added Aunspach, “[The coho fishery] needs more rain, probably, to get it going.”
Admiralty Inlet
Marine Area 9 (Admiralty Inlet) anglers still have some time to figure out their king fishery.
Although, it appears to be equally as maddening of a task out east as it has been for all of the areas to the west.
“It’s still not hot, but it’s fair,” Eric Elliot of the Fishing Hole (360-385-7031) in Port Townsend said.
“I guess they are mainly fishing off Point Wilson, and that’s where they have been doing well.”
One second-hand report had state creel checkers counting nine chinook for six boats, according to Elliott.
If true, that would be a great improvement over what’s been the norm this summer. (Creel check numbers have been subpar, to say the least.)
Some of that may be attributable to the ever-present morning fog, which has made early morning angling difficult since mid July.
“This morning was horrible,” Elliott said. “I don’t know what it’s going to be like this weekend with this warm front coming in.”
Freshwater fishing
Anglers might be better off taking a dip in Peninsula rivers than actually fishing them this weekend.
With clear skies and warm temperatures predicted for the next few days — and no rain in sight — river fishing promises to be awfully difficult.
Streams are low and clear enough as it is, according to Bob Gooding of Olympic Sporting Goods (360-374-6330) in Forks.
“They are getting some trout, they are getting some steelhead . . . but it’s tough,” Gooding said.
Scads of summer silvers are swimming around the Sol Duc, he said.
Hooking one, however, is a tough task to say the least.
“It wouldn’t matter if it was now, October or whenever, they aren’t going to be very cooperative [in such low water conditions],” Gooding said.
“The water is clear as gin and everything in the world is trying to kill them. Not surprisingly, they are kind of nervous.”
Longtime Peninsula angler Ward Norden of Quilcene said there are a number of warm water lakes that provide decent bass fishing this time of year.
One of his highest piscatorial recommendations went to Lake Leland in Jefferson County.
“Leland is the ‘fish factory’ of the Olympic Peninsula,” Norden wrote in an e-mail.
“High in nutrients and in a microclimate that gets water temperatures to above 80 degrees every summer makes this lake wonderful not only for bass, but also bluegill, crappie, yellow perch and catfish.
Added Norden, “This summer, Lake Leland is alive with 2-year-old largemouth bass [5 to 8 inches in size] from a banner 2008 spawning season.
“Biologists call this phenomenon a dominant year class, which foretells good fishing for several years. On the down side, so many 2-year-olds means the bigger bass over two pounds are not particularly hungry this summer, being surrounded by so much prey.”
Bear down
Lend an ear to the clear cuts and a hunter just might be able to score a black bear.
There’s already been a small handful taken on the Peninsula two weeks into the season.
Aunspach ran into one himself while scouting out a clear cut earlier this past week.
Of course, he didn’t actually get a glimpse of it until hours after he first heard the beast rustling around some brush. That’s just the way it goes with black bear.
“If they are feeding, you are going to hear them probably before you see them,” Aunspach said. “Then the fun is trying to figure out where that sound is coming from.
“The heat doesn’t really seem to affect black bear. I’ve seen more bear at high noon or 1 p.m. If they are in the feeding mood . . . they will be in the berries somewhere.
“Wherever you know of older clear cuts that have berries growing in them, that’s where [the bear are] going to be.”
Also . . .
• The Clallam Bay-Sekiu Lions Club will host its annual Kids’ Salmon Derby next Saturday, Aug. 21.
The event is open to children ages 5-14, with no entry fee required. Prizes will be awarded for the first-, second- and third-largest legal salmon.
Registration begins at 5:30 a.m. at Curley’s, Van Riper’s and Olson’s resorts, with the weigh-in at noon near the Lions’ Club swings.
For more information, contact Roy Morris at 360-963-2442.
• The Wapiti Bowmen will hold its annual hunter warm-up Aug. 21-22 at its club range east of Port Angeles.
Archers will get to shoot at 30 targets each day, with prizes on the line for those who participate in both days of shooting.
For more information on the event, call club president Pete Joers at 360-681-2972 or send an e-mail to joersclan@msn.com.
• Washington Trails Association recently included the Lower Big Quilcene Trail in its list of top 10 endangered trails in the state.
The popular multi-use trail has four significant bridges that are failing, according to Washington Trails, making it impassible in some areas.
For more information on the endangered trails and how to help save them, visit http://tinyurl.com/27mwedx.
• Washington Trails Association will gather a volunteer work party at Notch Pass Trail near Quilcene on Tuesday.
Volunteers must pre-register 48 hours in advance. To pre-register, contact Washington Trails at 206-625-1367 or visit www.wta.org.
• The Washington Native Plant Society will hunt for rare plant species during a foray at Point Wilson on Aug. 20.
The plant walk lasts from 12:30 p.m. to 3:30 p.m., with the focus on a pair of plants (Convolvulus soldanella and Honckenya peploides) that sporadically show at the park.
For more information, including where to meet, contact Fred Weinmann at fweinmann@cablespeed.com or 360-379-0986.
• Puget Sound Anglers-North Olympic Peninsula chapter will gather for its monthly meeting in Sequim next Thursday.
The meeting begins at 7 p.m. in the Trinity Methodist Church, 100 S. Blake Ave. Details of guest speakers and subjects to be discussed were not reported.
• The Coastal Conservation Association-North Olympic Peninsula Chapter will hold its monthly meeting in Sequim on Aug. 26.
Among the topics up for discussion are Peninsula salmon, steelhead, halibut, rockfish and recreational crabbing management issues.
The meeting will run from 6:45 p.m. to 8 p.m. at the Sequim Library, 630 N. Sequim Ave.
For more information on the association, visit ccapnw.org.
Send photos, stories
Want your event listed in the outdoors column?
Have a fishing or hunting report, an anecdote about an outdoors experience or a tip on gear or technique, why not share it with our readers?
Send it to me, Matt Schubert, Sports Department, Peninsula Daily News, P.O. Box 1330, Port Angeles, WA 98362; phone, 360-417-3526; fax, 360-417-3521; e-mail matt.schubert @peninsuladailynews.com.
__________
Matt Schubert is the outdoors columnist for the Peninsula Daily News. His column appears on Thursdays and Fridays.