Northwest Fishing Reports

Hey guys, just noticed on WDFW website that Lake WA is opening for Coho on the 16th-October 31!!! That's great news considering they almost completely closed the lake for this month so quite the turnaround!

Anywho, my dad who lives in eastgate has a 12ft boat I was considering have him take me out on, but we don't have down riggers and we both have spinning gear and not much in terms of trolling gear..
I've read that these fish are lock jaw often and some days they bite a lot.
Anywho I was thinking of just using a pretty big amount of weight and trolling slow and hope that would get the desired depth needed? I have pink hoochies and a "herring dodger" as well. Would I want to put the weight right above the dodger or below or what?

Also is there ANY possibility of caring somewhere from shore for them? I have a pink 2" buzz bomb I've been dying to try lol.

I don't mean a river opportunity I do just mean is there anywhere on lake Wa I would have a chance of casting from shore/ a dock and getting a coho?

Thanks and good luck to all with this exciting new opportunity!

With your situation, you'd be best off jigging for them. The place will be a zoo and trolling without downriggers is going to cause some issues, as you'll most likely be droppng back futher than most of the other folks trolling. Your buzz bomb will work, as will similar styles of jigs. All you need is a basic sonar unit to find a school, or you can look for the jumpers, and drop it on top of them.

G-Man wrote:With your situation, you'd be best off jigging for them. The place will be a zoo and trolling without downriggers is going to cause some issues, as you'll most likely be droppng back futher than most of the other folks trolling. Your buzz bomb will work, as will similar styles of jigs. All you need is a basic sonar unit to find a school, or you can look for the jumpers, and drop it on top of them.

That's a great idea I didn't think of! Thanks!!
His boat had a fish finder, not a sonar but that should atleast help find schools.
Hopefully by being stationary I won't be in everyone's way, but it sounds like it should be able to work.

So do you think I would need to add weight to get it down or no since the jigs are already weighted I'll just let it fall all the way to the strike zone?

I'm thinking I'll get a couple more buzz bombshell a couple more similar jigs like you said.
Will coho fishery be as crazy as if sockeye were to open or not quite that crazy?

Oh yeah and is there any particular attractant that would be key for them?

I have bloody tuna oil from pro cure. Would that work? Or herring? Or would it not really make a difference?

I also see that you must release sockeye and chinook, but is this a barbless fishery?
Are treble hooks or barbed single hooks allowed or just barbless?
It didn't say where it said to open for salmon fishing that it was barbless required so I wasn't sure

Try using a deep 6 diver for trolling if you go that route. They work great when u don't have downriggers and dive deep. Good luck!

G-Man wrote:With your situation, you'd be best off jigging for them. The place will be a zoo and trolling without downriggers is going to cause some issues, as you'll most likely be droppng back futher than most of the other folks trolling. Your buzz bomb will work, as will similar styles of jigs. All you need is a basic sonar unit to find a school, or you can look for the jumpers, and drop it on top of them.

Ya it will be a zoo for the first time ever. I rarely saw people out there when ive fished for them.

Wonderful. I'm still hoping they open the salt. I keep hearing there are lots of Silvers out there. In July I was over at Sekiu... we ran over to Neah and fished Tatoosh and there were lots of Silvers around, not many Nooks though.

But opening the salt to us would prob take another battle with our Native American friends. That would take so long the Silver run would prob be over by the time they did something.

fisherman92 wrote:Try using a deep 6 diver for trolling if you go that route. They work great when u don't have downriggers and dive deep. Good luck!

So does the deep 6 diver act as a flasher, or does that need to be added?
Mainline deep 6 leader flasher leader bait? Or not exactly?

RE: jigging for coho on lake Washington. Use a 2-3 oz buzz bomb, zinger, or similar type jig. Drop it to the bottom (generally 70-80 feet deep), and jig/slowly retrieve. You'll see the fish on the fish finder and see your jig. They will usually hook on the drop. Change the hook to a single siwash (IMO) as they hook better. Don't know about barbless, I'm guessing it will be a barbless fishery but check the WDFW emergency rule notice, should have the info there. Good luck!

Got it! Thanks Mike!!
The update said nothing of hook requirements, and the pamphlet says nothing of barbless for any species in Lk. Wa, so before I end up going I will double check but so far am assuming it's not barbless.
Although I have lots of barbless hooks from my cowlitz trips and will probably use them anyways!

Appreciate all the advice

Scheindogg - You won't need to add any weight, there is no current to worry about, a 1 ounce jig will be more than adequate to get you down to the fish. The biggest issue would be with wind and staying over a school when you find one. I think most any scent will work, herring, bloody tuna, shrimp/krill, anchovy. etc. As for barbed or not, I did not see anything indicating a requirement for barbless or single point hooks so feel free to use what you want. There are sockeye and chinook in the area so be sure you can tell the difference. I have a feeling with this being one of the few open fisheries for salmon in the puget sound area, enforcement will be out and about looking to keep people honest.

Barchaser - as much as I like fishing for salmon in the salt, the terminal fishery is really were we all should be targeting these fish. When a fish is caught out in the Straight/ocean, there is no telling what system it is from. Commercial, tribal and sport fishers can easily cull a specific run of fish without realizing it and I've always suspected this to be the case when we see unexpected poor returns of fish to a system. I think we are going to see some really good returns to the Lake Washington and the Green River systems because of the moratorium on coho fishing out in the salt.

G-Man, I agree with your thoughts on returns, now it's a matter of getting them to bite. Coho in Lake Washington can be very finicky. Think similar to the action this year on Baker Lake sockeye. Some guys did well, but a lot got skunked (include me in that).

I like the fishery because it's always fun to catch salmon in a lake. I'm also ready to pound the water and don't have overly high expectations. That said, like Baker, we've had reports in years past from guys that have done very well.

To all of you going back over the old reports to get some tips, here's a tip:

From the black menu bar go to "Lakes Index". Pull up Lake Washington. Then select the "reports" link. Then use the filter at the top of the list of reports and select "salmon" as species. Leave the date range to full dates. Hit "search". You'll now have filtered down to just the salmon reports for lake Washington from years past. There are 34 reports, including reports from rseas, djbutler, and G-Man, anglers who know the fishery and have shared some valuable information for everyone to learn from. Plus hot spots. So you'll have a wealth of detailed information to study between now and next Friday.

Good Luck all, I'll be out there as well!

Great stuff!! Thanks guys!
Since GMan said 1oz is sufficient and Mike said 2-3oz.. I'll just have to get a variety of 1-3oz jigs and see which is the most lucky! (If any)
And that's awesome, when will you head over?

If it's open for month and a half do you know when the best time will be for them? Right when it opens? Beggining of October? End of the season? Sorry- never fished for coho before

In my personal experience, I've never done well for Silvers in freshwater. I usually run into lock jaw fish. I did do pretty well trolling the Sno a few years ago but we had to share a lot of fish with seals.

I assume they are monitoring the S rivers. Seems like if those runs are looking OK they could open 8-2 which is pretty much a terminal fishery with most of those fish heading to an S river. I never fish the Strait or the ocean for Silvers just Chinooks although I run into a Silver now and then, mostly with a high fin.

Nelly and crew have some tips on this weeks podcast. Listen to the Diawa Tech line segment.

http://www.theoutdoorline.com/podcasts/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Thanks I was actually listening to that on the way to work today but I was wondering if they had a podcast of it!!
Was glad to hear they mentioned jigging so I won't (hopefully) be the only one jigging lol.

hey check out the vids on the site heres one ..http://www.northwestfishingreports.com/ ... spx?id=202

One of my old reports outlines jigging. I think we got 2 or 3, fishing in the evening. Pretty fun technique when they are biting.
If I recall (and I'm no expert) the bite is best the first week it opens.

On my phone, once I get to the lake Washington reports it won't let me click the species bar or any of the pages, dunno if it's a bug or just my phone so I can't see those reports . Oh well.

So I picked up a couple more buzz bombs now I have two 2 1/2 in buzz bombs (pink/pearl and perch are the colors) and a 3in XH blue/pearl one and a 4" hot pink buzzbomb.
I am planning on switching them every half hour or so until I find the one that gets the most action.

My last question about jigging them is how exactly would you rig it?

Just exactly way the directions on the box?
I read on a different site this-

Hook-bumper(included with buzz bomb)-bead-buzzbomb-bead-another hook threaded on above the bead-leader-mainline

It's either that or exactly how box says which would be hook-bumper-buzzbomb-mainline

Is there any other way that might help my hookup ratio?

I like the idea of an extra hook above the lure because the article that suggested that said that the top hook accounted for about half his hookups!


I plan on not using the treble hook provided as the bottom hook. Should I get Gami trebles or just use my single point Gami as the bottom hook?
I have size 4,2,1,1/0 Gami barbless octopus as well as some 1/0 Gami octopus circle hooks (with barb)
Any ideas would be welcomed.
Thanks again for everything guys