2024 Puget Sound Coho Season
Introduction
I am writing this entry on October 2nd, a day where many of the trees are radiating their fall colors and some have already lost all of their leaves. The Puget Sound Salmon season is still open for some marine areas, but the bite has cooled down. There are fewer fish in the salt, as the majority of the Coho are moving or have already moved into the rivers. As the season for downriggers and salty equipment winds down, and the river season begins I thought it would be a good time to debrief the past month and a half of salmon fishing in the Sound. We were able to take many friends and family members out on the water and get them on the line with fish, which I have found is even more rewarding then hooking one for myself.
The Boat
This season was Teagan and I’s second fishing the Sound for silvers, but the first in our new boat. This boat has provided more access and longer days on the water in search of these beautiful fish, but it has also presented many learning experiences. From trailering an 18ft boat, reversing the boat into our cramped driveway, launching at crowded launches early in the morning, refueling at busy gas stations, navigating rough water, and becoming more comfortable away from shore, we made learning the many nuances of boat ownership a priority…but we still caught some fish too. Down below, I will discuss our gear, setups, tactics and mistakes from this season on the Sound.
Downriggers
This is one our two electric downriggers
The boat came with two electric Scotty downriggers, which allow anglers to present their lures at specific depths, and in the case of Puget Sound salmon fishing these tools are essential. In addition to setting your gear at exact depths, the downriggers also allow the angler to fight the fish without the heavy weight, since the weight is attached to the angler’s mainline via a detachable snap. This snap will detach from the mainline when a fish bites, allowing the angler to fight the fish without the heavy weight. Below is a diagram of a fairly standard downrigger setup for salmon. Using the downriggers takes some getting used to. Learning what a bite looks like, getting the trolling speed right, managing two at once, and testing various depths all take some practice, but as the season has winded down, we both feel pretty good about using these handy tools.
Here is a link to the image source: https://www.bcfishingjournal.com/project/diagrams-on-how-to-setup-downriggers-with-inline-and-dummy-flashers/
Flashers
This season we were able to expand our gear selection a bit to include some cool new flashers, lures, rods, and reels. We added three new flashers of note, all of which around that 11 inch mark. We found that silver and purple / pink work really well at many depths to attract salmon. We primarily stuck to the ProTroll brand as they are well known and have nice UV patterns that have given us a good deal of success. I found a pattern at 3 Rivers Marine which really caught my eye, a flasher from a company in BC Canada, but despite its appealing look to me, the fish seemed unimpressed and it failed to hook one all season (the blue one in the middle below)
The two flashers on the far right were by far the most productive for us
Lures
Our favorite lures for the Sound are Brad’s Super Bait and Yakmia Bait’s Spinfish plugs. Both of these lures have small compartments for bait and scent, which in addition to the various color patterns provide an extra layer of attraction to the presentation=. We primarily loaded these lures with canned sardines and a variety of scents to great success. We choose the color of our lures mostly on personal opinion and intuition, but there is a bit of science to be aware of when making your selection. Fish will see certain colors more at certain depths. So the general rule of thumb is:"
30 ft and up - Reds, Oranges, Pinks
30-75 ft - Yellows, Greens
75 ft and deeper - Blues
Tying up leaders the night before an outing was super important for a successful day on the water. If you have 8 or so pre-tied leaders rigged up and snuggly tied to a foam board, tangles and mishaps that inevitably happen will be far less debilitating. You can simply swap out the tangled, lost, or ineffective gear with new ones in seconds.
Rods and Reels
We added two new trolling rods to the arsenal this year, both about as cheap as one can go. They are both Shimano Scimitars, around 10.5 ft long. Both rods have nice flex, which is important for a trolling rod as a flexible rod is easier to use with downriggers than a stiff rod. Stiff rods may pop off the downrigger clip too easily as there is more tension in the setup. We have two cheap conventional reels for these rods, one with a line counter and one without. A line counter is nice, but not essential for us given that our downriggers have line counters that we can use to set our depth. These rods have been excellent and I would reccommned them over more expensive counterparts.
Miscellaneous Gear
Teagan and I have spent a decent amount of time ensuring our boat is loaded with all sorts of useful miscellenous items. To name a few we have:
Pliers, scents, scissors, and flourocarbon leader spools
a VFH radio in case of emergencies
four PFDs
a line holder for our various spools of flouro leader
a very sharp Bubba fillet knife, plastic bags for fillets, Fillet Away Fish mat (for, you guessed it, filleting fish)
Bubba scissors
Large landing net
Bonker
Lessons and Takeaways
The most important lesson we learned this season was managing stress. For me, sleep has been something I have stressed over for a while now, but I am slowly learning that trying to go to bed super early before a very early morning and long day of fishing is sometimes just not feasible for me. Instead, a more productive and sustainable approach has been to simply accept that I will be tired the day of and that that is ok.
Another important lesson for us was timing. Many will prioritize an early morning timing regardless of tides, but we found that avoiding slack tides was the most important timing element to abide by. Whenever we fished during a slack tide, the bite was dead. Granted this was our second season, and perhaps after more experience under our belts this will change, but this season we fish most productively on outgoing / incoming tides later in the morning.
Diversifying our presentations was another super important general strategy. We made sure to set our downriggers to different depths, use different colors on each setup, and employing varying lengths for bumpers and leaders. This way whenever we had a bite we could track what worked and skew our subsequent setups closer to the one we knew was productive.
Mental stability and fortitude in the face of repeated failure is a lesson I am (and probably will continue) to learn. It is not easy to stay calm and collected when everything is going wrong, but it makes everyone’s day better. When downrigger snaps are popping off when they shouldn’t, or the weather turns, or you are losing fish, it is super important to try to stay calm and positive.
What’s Next?
Since the fish have mostly moved into the rivers by now, it’s about time to put the flashers and plugs away, and bring out the spinners, wigglers, jigs, and beads. Our new sled boat was awesome for what we wanted in the Sound, but it will truly excel in the rivers. We have a prop on the lower unit of our 115 HP Yamaha Outboard, but will need to get this outfitted with a jet before we take it out on the rivers, so for now we will stick to bank fishing or using our raft to access water on the rivers. We plan on hitting up the Peninsula several times this fall and will report back with updates.
Thanks for reading and please reach out with any questions!
