Duamish/Green: An unusual amount of hens?

[BentRod]

Since the bite finally turned on for me in mid Sept, I've managed to land 12 Coho in the Duamish/Green system (which I consider a good season ). Nothing of any great size mind you. The majority have been on twitching jigs, but a few were taken on eggs. Of those 12 only two have been bucks. The other 10 have been hens (fortunately I cure the eggs, so am not complaining). I have lost a couple of fish that were definitely bucks and a couple unseen, but even so, that takes my ratio to 4 bucks to 10 hens. Is this strange? I don't have enough experience to know what's average. In 2012 ( my first year river fishing for salmon and the last time I did fairly well on Coho) I didn't make note of the sex of my catches, so don't really recall, but looking back at the few pictures I took there also seem to be an abundance of hens vs. bucks in those shots as well. Curious to know what everyone else's experience on hens to bucks caught in the rivers?

[BlakeP]

I've caught a lot more hens this year as well. From the rivers I've fished so far this year, out of 19 coho I'd say 13 or 14 have been hens. Most years I seem to catch more bucks than hens and I've seen a lot more hens caught this year compared to other years. Not that I'm complaining, I go through a lot of eggs and try to keep only hens during the beginning of the season, so the amount of hens has made things easier for me.

[losaturn]

I was thinking the same thing, but then again I always seem to catch more hens than bucks. Out of the 41 adults I've tagged, only 6 have been bucks. Most have come in the last couple weeks. I've even caught "jack" hens that were 18-19" long. That early push of fish were smaller, but lately I'm seeing bigger fish on average.

[BentRod]

I was thinking the same thing, but then again I always seem to catch more hens than bucks. Out of the 41 adults I've tagged, only 6 have been bucks. Most have come in the last couple weeks. I've even caught "jack" hens that were 18-19" long. That early push of fish were smaller, but lately I'm seeing bigger fish on average.

Wow, not only is that a LOT of Coho, that's a lot of hens! Your numbers are even more skewed than mine.

[jrodell27]

That's a whole lot of fish! I have yet to see anyone land a fish on the Duwamish the times I've been out in the past 3 weeks. I'm doing most of my fishing more up river towards the Seattle/Tukwilla area but man, it's been tough. Throwing everything I can at these fish (who are rolling everytime I go out, just not biting) and they don't seem to like what I've got for them. Nice work at landing what you did BentRod, definitely jealous on my end! :D

[losaturn]

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[jrodell27]

That's a whole lot of fish! I have yet to see anyone land a fish on the Duwamish the times I've been out in the past 3 weeks. I'm doing most of my fishing more up river towards the Seattle/Tukwilla area but man, it's been tough. Throwing everything I can at these fish (who are rolling everytime I go out, just not biting) and they don't seem to like what I've got for them. Nice work at landing what you did BentRod, definitely jealous on my end! :D

What are you using? I have yet to catch more than a few on anything besides bait.

Well, I've been trying almost everything in my small arsenal thus far. I've been primarily basing my method style on the river's conditions. When it's slow and still, I've been working vibrax & mepps spinners in the usual chartreuse, orange, and silver/gold styles. I'll try a DickNite here and there, doing the same cast and retrieve methods as you would a spinner basically. Slow reels with occasional jigs and pauses in the retrieve.

When there is a semblance of a current I'm trying to use corkies, yarn, and bait (so far been trying store bought Ray's roe) with some pencil lead rigging and various of the colors and yarn ball styles. I haven't really busted out my floats yet which I'm tempted to try next. I've also attempted jig tying so I've got a handful of 1/4 oz jig heads tied with marabou and hackle in a few colors. Haven't really spent much time with these yet the few times I've been out.

I think the best "luck" (meaning when I thought I felt a bite once) is with bait as you have mentioned you've also had more success than I have with. I'm going to keep at it and just keep trying to work on my techniques in the coming weeks. Hopefully we'll see some more positive reports and awesome pictures of some landed chromies.

Do you think the bite has been pretty bad in the afternoons? I keep seeing much success in the mornings but little in the PM.

[losaturn]

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[Hepker]

unless of course a f'n sea lion swims around within 100 yards of you for 90 of the 120 minutes you are on the river