PORT ANGELES — Pinks are running in pretty good numbers through the Strait of Juan de Fuca from Neah Bay all the way to Port Townsend.
That’s not the salmon serious anglers are trying to bring aboard, and maybe not the greatest of news for anglers trying to get the most out of hatchery chinook retention.
But these pink runs are not the massive swarms that started in 1999 and continued every odd year through 2015.
Those days are over for the near future, however with this year’s run forecast to be worse than 2017, which was one of the worst returns in recorded history.
The summer of 2015 was my first experience with pinks and they certainly provided an active afternoon and some grilling fodder when kings weren’t biting along the kelp line west of Freshwater Bay.
Or maybe we couldn’t get to the kings because the aggressive pinks wouldn’t let anything pass them by.
Port Angeles angler and lure designer Pete Rosko had me aboard his runabout back then and his advice is simple.
“I love casting a 1/3-ounce Kandlefish [jig] for them,” Rosko said.
Rosko instructed me to just keep lifting and dropping your rod tip as vertically as you can every now and then to put a little life into your action.
Kings the thing
But most folks are focused on kings with two weeks left for hatchery chinook retention in Marine Areas 5 (Sekiu) and 6 (Eastern Strait of Juan de Fuca) and at least today and tomorrow remaining as open days in Marine Area 9 (Admiralty Inlet).
Sequim angler Dave Croonquist collects fishing reports from area anglers. He recently passed along a compilation of chinook catch reports — and made a solid distinction that many may not understand.
“The few fishing reports I’ve received have been about good days and slow days,” Croonquist wrote in an email. “Sounds like the fish are moving through. One day, hatchery fish predominate and the next day, it is Natural Origin Returns or NORs fish.”
Croonquist has done research into our state’s fish plant records and thinks it’s much more accurate a description than labeling any old returning salmon with an intact adipose fin a “wild” salmon.
“I don’t like to say ‘wild’ as the old [state Department of Fisheries] stocking records would indicate that our various river basins have received billions of salmon plants since 1894,” Croonquist said. “The movement of eggs/fish between river basins has blended our stocks and run timing to a point where I would argue that we have a feral/blended population of salmon.”
Obviously, there’s much more to that argument, but back to king fishing.
“As mentioned, folks are finding (chinook), both NORs and HORs (Hatchery Origin Returns) but not with a lot of consistency,” Croonquist said. “Jiggers have been doing well at Freshwater Bay along the kelp line from Bachelor Rock west to the [Salt Creek County Park] campground.
“Trollers have had success, too, when there isn’t a lot of kelp/seaweed in the water. The jiggers are working the 30-50’ range. Trollers are working, when possible, the 70- to 120-foot contours. The Humps have been turning out HORs into the upper teens and NORs into the lower 20-pound range.”
Smaller spoons have matched the hatch, Croonquist said.
“The regular standby hootchies (white UV and green spatterback) are also catching fish. Pinks are showing up and are running up to 5-6 pounds. Have heard of a few coho being caught. That fishery should improve over the next few weeks. Haven’t heard much about successes off Ediz Hook, but fish are being caught.”
The two chinook at the top of the article were caught using hoochies in 70 feet of water off Ediz Hook.
Legendary memories
The calendar’s turn to August has Quilcene’s Ward Norden, a former fisheries biologist and owner of Snapper Tackle Co., thinking about Sekiu king fishing.
“It has been over 20 years since Silver King Resort at the south of Jim Creek near Pillar Point east of Sekiu closed forever after the passing of its owner, John Haller,” Norden said.
Memories of the legendary king fishery on the first week of August remain. That fishery, for 10 days routinely produced kings over 40 pounds with occasional monster in the 50s.”
Norden said the old-fashioned method caught most of those kings.
“Those huge salmon were nearly all caught by ‘moochers’ drifting plug cut herring in shallow water only a few yards from the kelp line,” Norden said. “Rarely were they caught by so-called, modern methods such as dragging flashers with spoons or hoochies.”
Norden said the origin and destination of those fish was a mystery.
“My theory about those special salmon was that they were a separate run from the Fraser River that spawned on one small area,” Norden said. “That run had a unique migration route that crossed the Strait from Vancouver Island every year, just touching the U.S. side near Jim Creek, then going quickly back across.”
And it might be worth it to see if any descendents remain, even though they are likely adipose fin intact wild kings.
“That run of salmon likely still uses its historical migration route,” Norden said. “Anglers interested in trophy kings might take a look in the pre-sunrise morning along those kelp lines and plan on fishing the old-fashion way, drift mooching. Limber up that razor sharp bait knife and practice giving that plug cut herring just the right spin for chinook, not coho. Sadly, it is very unlikely any of those giant chinook are fin clipped ”
Fly Fishers meet
Flyfisher magazine editor David Paul Williams will present Beach Fishing for Salmon on North Puget Sound at Monday’s meeting of the Olympic Peninsula Fly Fishers.
The group meets on the first Monday of each month in Port Angeles at the Campfire USA Clubhouse in Webster Park, 619 E. Fourth St., at 6 p.m.
It’s an aptly timed presentation as Williams will describe how to fish for pinks from shore.
He will start with a fly tying demonstration of one of his favorite pink flies, the D-Dubs Puget Pink, a tie that is straightforward to tie but works effectively.
The meeting is open to the public.
________
Sports reporter/columnist Michael Carman can be contacted at 360-417-3525 or mcarman@peninsuladailynews.com.
