Free: Contests & Raffles.
Bite was unimpressive last night although the run from Everett down was as smooth as I have ever seen, absolutely great night to be on the water especially if you don't have ac at home.We hooked 2, landed one and missed one or two bites in an hour and a half of fishing. There were maybe 8-10 boats and I didn't see many caught. Bummer, I was hoping there would be a good evening bite so I could hit it more often.Since fishing was slow, I took a few pics of how we take care of the fish for those that want to take advantage of this incredible resource. This works the same with most Coho, but different for Chinook and pig silvers just due to their size. As far as I am concerned, this will produce the best meat possible for any given fish.Step 1, catch them. Usually the hardest part, except for pinks and then netting them is the hardest part.Step 2, bleed them. You can either give them one light, well placed bonk or just cut them and they will be dead in a few seconds. With the bonk, you aren't trying to for a home run, just stun the fish. One moderately light and well placed bonk is all you want. Don't be the guy that looks like a scene from a gangster movie pounding on your fish. You can't bleed out a dead fish, the heart must be pumping to get the most amount of blood out. I use a knife to cut under the chin between the gills and take one side of the gills with me, harder to explain than do. You can also use scissors and or even tear out the gills with your fingers if you like it caveman style. I have a 5 gallon bucket I fill half way with water and cut the fish in the bucket and leave it head first. The bucket reduces mess on the deck by at least 50%. Do this as quickly as possible after catching as the pinks will dance around and get bruised if you just let them flop all around. If you fill the bucket full, you will get wet if you stand next to it.Step 3, gut. I give them maybe 5 minutes to bleed, sometimes even less. The goal is to not let them stew in warmish bloody water for the rest of the day. I use a Coho Cleaner which works great because the mess is outside the boat and I can just leave it there while I fish. Do a good job, get the kidneys all out.Step 4, ice. I have an icemaker at home, so I usually start with about 20 pounds. You don't need that much, one normal 7# bag would be ok, two better. If you can use freezer ice, it will be as much as 40 degrees cooler than wet ice, I store mine in a chest freezer maxed out. Mix enough clean salt water into the cooler or fish box to submerge the fish. This icy brine will get freakishly cold, my hands hurt when I have to take the fish out and the water makes sure every part of the fish is in contact with cold. If you toss a whole fish on top of the bag of ice, it will take about six days to completely cool.Step 5, clean. I use the bloody bucket to wash out the Coho Cleaner and then a half bucket of clean salt water to rinse it. Another half bucket to clean the slime off the deck, a rinse on the knife and then the fish is clean and cold and I'm ready for the next one.As I mentioned, this works for most coho, but if the fish get too big they can flop out of the bucket and fling blood everywhere which sucks. In that case, I usually bleed them in the net, gut and then ice. Gutting keeps the mess at home very minimized, speeds the cooling, slows decomposition and basically leads to a better product. When I get home, I filet and the spine, head, skin and tail go into the crab bait freezer and since there are no guts, there is nothing to throw away and broil in your garbage can for a week.It took longer to type this than it does start to finish, you can really get a good rhythm going which is helpful if you have a fish coming over the transom every few minutes during a good bite.This is what works for us.
Seals are starting to get pretty thick, especially around the mouth of the Snohomish, I'm guessing pinks are stacked all through there now.
