Coho delivers plenty of bang for your recreational buck

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Thursday, September 18, 2003

Coho delivers plenty of bang for your recreational buck

By GREG JOHNSTON
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

SEKIU -- Everything about the coho salmon screams aggression.

In the ocean they feed in large, frenzied schools, slashing repeatedly through tight, circling balls of herring bunched together for protection.

At the right time and place, coho will chase down and smash bucktail flies trolled on the surface at 4 knots.


		Mike Urban / P-I
	Tim Bowers of Montesano nets a 12-pound coho for his wife, Marcie, as daughter Ivy video tapes the event and daughter Clara watches.

Called "silvers" by anglers, at times they're so aggressive they'll strike almost anything offered: plug-cut herring, spoons, spinners, plastic squids, jigs, plugs. After running out of herring, I've caught them on the heads left from cutting plugs, one on each of a two-hook leader. A friend caught a coho once at Neah Bay with a plug-cut hot dog.

Although they bite less readily once in freshwater, when they do strike it can be immediate or out of nowhere, like the second your spinner hits the river on a cast or right at your feet at the end of the retrieve.

The look of a mature male silver as it nears the completion of its life journey and ultimate demise is one of primal intensity, the upper jaw hooking downward hideously, its body wide but sleek, its tail broad as a broom.

When hooked, coho typically go berserk. Big ones take line with as much power as a similar-size chinook or steelhead. They'll often jump two, three, four times straight out of the water, or cartwheel, going tail over teeth.

When they tire, sometimes they'll stop and just spin, twisting the leader into tangles.

"They're a great fish to play on light gear, too, even when they're 8 pounds," says Buzz Wisecup, of Sekiu, a Strait of Juan de Fuca highliner for more than 20 years. "When they get to that magic hooknose size, that's a different type of fish. It's exciting. They have the authority to do what they want to do."


		Mike Urban / P-I
	A plastic "hootchie" squid combined with a dodger and herring, is an effective coho-catching combo.

They're also a fine-eating fish. Most salmon connoisseurs consider chinook and sockeye better, since coho are not as rich in oil and thus more prone to becoming dry and overcooked -- a sin in fish cookery. But some prefer coho. The flesh is typically crimson and flavor distinct, reminiscent of the scent of the sea during a low-tide beach walk.

Coho salmon are a marvelous game fish that have been prized by Washington anglers for decades.

Although wild coho spawn in smaller streams and tributaries and so are vulnerable to land-use changes, overall wild and hatchery stocks remain abundant throughout Western Washington and are at their annual peak right now in the Columbia River and Puget Sound. Coastal stocks peak a few weeks later, but already are providing action for anglers in places like Grays Harbor and Willapa Bay.

State biologists predict strong coho runs in most regions this year. Preseason forecasts estimated 800,000 mostly hatchery coho from the lower Columbia River, allowing a three-fish daily limit in some tributaries. Coastal runs were forecast at 415,000 and the run to Puget Sound and associated marine waters was forecast at more than 1 million; the limit in those areas is two fish.

In many areas across Western Washington, anglers are allowed to keep only hatchery coho marked by the lack of an adipose fin, which is clipped before the fish are released as juveniles from the hatcheries. This helps protect wild coho runs that are depressed in many rivers due to long-term loss of their small-stream habitat from agriculture, logging practices and, especially in the Puget Sound basin, urban and suburban development.

"They're so dependent on freshwater habitat because they spend 1 to 2.5 years in freshwater before they go to sea," explains Curt Kraemer, a local Department of Fish and Wildlife salmon expert. "They can be very productive if we give them half a chance. But if we leave them crappy habitat, we can only have crappy coho populations.

"There is still a lot of fishing opportunity and lots of hatchery fish," adds Kraemer, who suggests that anglers "go out and enjoy them and then appreciate what they need and lobby politicians and land managers to protect that."


		Mike Urban / P-I
	The lure of fighting coho draws anglers out at dawn, above, to the waters of the Strait of Juan de Fuca near Sekiu.

Coho are vulnerable to drought, and Kraemer predicts poor returns in 2005 because of this year's lack of rain, resulting in low stream flows.

But this season the outlook is good. Catches during the ocean salmon season, which closed last week, and so far on inland waters, indicate the coho population includes many larger specimens. It's too much to hope for another year like 2001, when the state saltwater coho record was broken three times in September off Sekiu -- ultimately 25.34 pounds. But dozens of silvers from 12 to 20 pounds already have been reported in the Columbia, at Sekiu, the San Juan Islands, Possession Bar, just off Edmonds and elsewhere.

"The nicer fish are really chunky this year," Kraemer says.

While coho bite on many baits and lures, anglers have their favorites. In saltwater, trolling or casting surface flies is perhaps the most fun way to catch the fish, but those methods work less consistently the farther inland the fish move. Neah Bay, now closed, is the single best spot in the state for surface flies, but anglers sometimes can get the techniques to work at spots farther inland by adding a small spinner blade just ahead of the fly.

The traditional favorite is simply a plug-cut herring, the head removed with an angled, beveled cut to make it spin while trolled -- resembling a herring wounded after a coho's savage strike -- behind a 2- to 4-ounce crescent sinker.

Arguably the ultimate coho getter is a whole or plug-cut herring trolled behind a dodger or flasher, both shiny attractor devices that wobble or spin and send out pulses of reflected light. This rig is usually fished off a downrigger, a device that lowers an 8- to 12-pound lead ball on a cable, with the angler's line attached by a clip that allows the line to pull free when a fish strikes.

"A dodger with a herring is one of the best combinations. I don't think you can beat that for coho or chinook," Wisecup says. "It's a killer."

Many anglers use a plastic "hootchie" squid -- red and green color combos are my personal favorite -- behind the dodger, with a filleted strip of herring on the hooks. This is almost as effective as a dodger/herring combo, and is cheaper because you can cut eight strips from a single herring and save on bait costs.

And often you'll go through a lot of bait because of the wild release rules and minimum size limits, or from throwing back little ones and trying for bigger ones, or because you'll be letting go other species such as chinook, which must be released alive in most areas right now.

Whatever you use, remember that coho are aggressive and respond best to a fairly fast troll. They usually travel in the upper levels of the water column, so keep your bait or lure anywhere from 15 to 65 feet down, dropping deeper as daylight increases, if necessary. Coho also tend to be offshore fish. Anglers typically will start fishing in 200 to 300 feet of water, starting shallow and fishing deeper until coho are located

There are plenty of places to fish for coho over the next few weeks.

For saltwater anglers, there simply isn't a better place than the west end of the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Although Neah Bay and adjacent ocean waters are closed now, the strait from the Sekiu River east to Pillar Point produces some of the hottest coho fishing imaginable in September. You must release unmarked coho in the strait, and it closes to salmon fishing at the end of the month.

Other traditional saltwater coho spots include the rest of the strait; the outer shore of the San Juan Islands; Admiralty Inlet and especially along the west shore of Whidbey Island off Fort Casey, Bush Point and Double Bluff, and Scatchet Head, Possession Bar and Point No Point at the inlet's south end; off Edmonds, Kingston, Jefferson Head, Point Monroe and West Point and Duwamish Head in Puget Sound.

Grays Harbor and the lower Chehalis River can be excellent in late September and well into November. Willapa Bay at the mouth of the Willapa River and off the North River also can be good.

Dozens of rivers are worth exploring. Effective techniques include back-trolling diving plugs from a drift boat and casting spinners -- I like a brass-bladed Flash Glo. Top rivers include the Skagit, Stillaguamish, Snohomish/Skykomish, Green, Puyallup and Carbon locally; Columbia tributaries including the Grays, Elochoman, Cowlitz, Toutle, Kalama, Lewis, Washougal, Drano Lake and Klickitat; and in the coastal region, the Elwha, Sol Duc, Quillayute, Bogachiel, Hoh, Queets, Quinault, Humptulips, Wishkah, Wynooche, Satsop, Willapa and Naselle.


		Mike Urban / P-I
	In the Strait of Juan de Fuca, Buzz Wisecup holds up his catch as he and Al Bridges check for the missing adipose fin indicating a hatchery-bred coho, and thus a keeper.

Note that some rivers don't open until Oct. 1 -- when they'll be appropriate places to experience some pure silver aggression.

IF YOU GO

Popularly called "silvers," mature coho (Oncorhynchus kisutch) run from 3 to 20-plus pounds. Stocks in Washington are not listed for protection under the Endangered Species Act, but many runs are depressed, and upper Columbia and Snake River stocks are considered extinct.

State records for coho are 25.34 pounds for saltwater, taken in September 2001 off Sekiu, and 25.27 pounds for freshwater, in November 2001 in the Quinault River.

A Washington fishing license is required; price varies depending on whether you fish freshwater, saltwater or both. A two-day license is $6.57, or about $7 with dealer's fee. They're available at tackle stores and department stores that sell fishing gear.

Be sure to get a copy of the 2003/04 "Fishing in Washington" pamphlet, since seasons, limits and release rules vary by area. See also the Department of Fish and Wildlife's Web site at www.wa.gov/wdfw for regulations, fishing reports and pertinent information.

P-I reporter Greg Johnston can be reached at 206-448-8014 or gregjohnston@seattlepi.com

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