2019 COHO REPORT

[cohocrazy]

Our trolling speed was about 3.3 on the GPS most of the time. Most of our fish were caught at 65 feet, a few at 90. I fished one rod at 40 - 45 early both days and it never got touched.

[funkster]

Our trolling speed was about 3.3 on the GPS most of the time. Most of our fish were caught at 65 feet, a few at 90. I fished one rod at 40 - 45 early both days and it never got touched.

That’s basically where we were catching them also! We caught our 2nd biggest fish of the weekend at 120 off the downrigger. Our biggest and 3rd biggest  fish were caught off a deep six at 90 on the reel counter. They sure liked the new Yakima spinfish full of krill gel!

[Stein]

Our trolling speed was about 3.3 on the GPS most of the time. Most of our fish were caught at 65 feet, a few at 90. I fished one rod at 40 - 45 early both days and it never got touched.

That’s basically where we were catching them also! We caught our 2nd biggest fish of the weekend at 120 off the downrigger. Our biggest and 3rd biggest  fish were caught off a deep six at 90 on the reel counter. They sure liked the new Yakima spinfish full of krill gel!

Where did you get the spinfish from?  What colors seemed to work?  I wanted to get my hands on one, but they were not exactly readily available.

We caught a few at 45, much better confidence at 65.  3-3.5 mph for the most part.

[funkster]

Sportco in fife, they have a small end of aisle display. They only had 1 lure left Thursday but said they were going to get another shipment in. We had the best results with the purplish/pink lure. My dad customized an all orange one with blue dodger tape, he caught our biggest fish. We filled the chamber with garlic bloody tuna on two and krill gel on the others. We caught 4 of the 10 off the spinfish. But we let many more go trying to get bigger fish.

[h20hunter]

Very nice!

[Blacklab]

Nice fish and display 👍😉🥃🇺🇸

[cohocrazy]

Funkster, Do you fish the spin fish with a flasher? if you do how long of a leader are you using?

[funkster]

Funkster, Do you fish the spin fish with a flasher? if you do how long of a leader are you using?

That’s what we’ve been doing, not sure if that’s what they recommend  Here’s how we’ve been setting up, off the downrigger we’re using a flasher and 48” leader off the rod line. We had more success off the rod line than running the flasher off the dr ball. On the deep six we’re using deep six, 24” leader, flasher, 24” leader to lure. We’ve been catching way more fish off the deep six’s than the downriggers, not sure why, has to be the depth?? My guess is the deep six run 20’-30’ higher than the reel counter, does anyone have any info on this?

Biggest fish was caught on a very old (30 plus years) blue and chrome flasher and the 2nd biggest was caught on a new cop car. I’m not really convinced if the flasher color has anything to do with anything?? What do you guys say?

[Stein]

Well, Mrs. Stein and I went out this morning, I made a minor engine repair and wanted to make sure it was 100% before I put it up for the winter.

30 min boat ride, 20 min to get our two fish and 30 min back to the launch.  The graph was loaded with fish for our short troll and we got two cookie cutter average fish.

I switched flasher colors and caught both on the same one with no bites on the old reliable that has caught probably at least a dozen fish recently.  That said, it was only two total bites in 20 min, so not much of a good comparison.

I think what may have happened is the 8-2 and 9 fish are already in the river and 10 is pretty loaded with fish that stage longer.  It would be nice if WDFW shed a bit of light on what they are looking at and modifying their forecast mid season instead of just throwing emergency changes out that are always bad news.  Then again, maybe we don't want to know how they decide to cut seasons and limits short.  Either way, 10 is absolutely loaded with fish right now, the most I can remember seeing at any place in my years of coho fishing.

[JBG]

Any wise ideas on how to keep the shakers off?  I swear every 2 min we get a shaker on.  Its really a pisser with hand crank downriggers!!!!!!!!!!!!

[HUNTINCOUPLE]

Any wise ideas on how to keep the shakers off?  I swear every 2 min we get a shaker on.  Its really a pisser with hand crank downriggers!!!!!!!!!!!!

Get electric riggers.

[OltHunter]

Any wise ideas on how to keep the shakers off?  I swear every 2 min we get a shaker on.  Its really a pisser with hand crank downriggers!!!!!!!!!!!!

Get electric riggers.

Excellent advise there!

But in all honesty, i don't believe there is anything you can do other than check your line more frequently, get it nice and tight and any slight bobbing you see on the rod tip that doesn't look normal, check it.

I upgraded to 5/0 hooks and can't believe how many shakers are still eating those. if you are in a good area and getting shakers, try dropping 10 feet and see if anything changes.

Nothing worse than trolling through a bait ball of the century, getting no hooks up, then pulling up your gear with a shaker on it.

[Stein]

When I bought electric riggers, I probably instantly caught 25% more fish (or more) just because I was checking my gear MUCH more often.  I thought I checked it often, but I wasn't.  Coho are one thing, but 110' or more out for chinook are another when you have heavy rigger balls and are running two riggers by yourself.

I was catching shakers on a 6' plug, they don't get their mouth around the hook, but attack it until the hook impales them sideways through the head.

The only thing I know of to do is keep a constant eye on the rod and you can usually see the initial hooking.  That and check your gear very often.  Speed, depth, gear, none of that matters too much although you will get slightly more on small gear like coho killers.

If you are really hard up, there is no size limit in MA10 now, you can keep one.   

[WAcoueshunter]

The rod makes a big difference. My kid uses a Lami classic glass, and that glass rod vibrates a little and makes it tough to see shakers. I use a graphite loomis GL2 and rarely miss a shaker when it initially bites. I also don’t let a gear stay down for more than 15 minutes or so without checking it.

[Stein]

I could see that Cous, I run the phenominal Shimano TDR $29.99 rods and it takes some time to develop the eye for shakers and weed - you really have to have seen it a bunch of times as almost nobody sees it and always asks how I can tell.  I'm sure a much higher quality rod would make the process vastly easier.  Once I get to the point where I don't have kids stepping on them and slamming them in the tailgate I'll probably upgrade.  Wait, it's me that does that.