I am new to Seattle and new to the Forum. I love to catch salmon in rivers. Does anyone know of a good place to get me started for some pinks or coho in local rivers. I enjoy walking or wading and casting, no boats.

Coug

Ok. Pinks and Coho. If you dont mind driving a bit the Skagit and Stilliguamish is loaded with Pinks, limit of 4 per day on both rivers. I like to use jigs or spoons for Pinks. Also, closer to Seattle is the Skykomish. It gets a good size run too. It is legal to fish silvers on the Sky, unlike the Stilly and Skagit. Dont ask me how to catch silvers on the Sky. I dont have that down to well yet. I get some but have not figured out a consistent lure yet.

As for how to get ther, just follow the main roads along the river (Hwy 2 is main one for Sky, 20 for Skagit and 530 for Stilly). If you see cars by the river, there is probably a place to fish there. If you want out of the way spots then use Maps


This should get you started. Good luck.

Coug,
The Snohomish is the closest bet for you. The river is loaded with pinks. They are also picking up silvers here and there. The Skagit(unless WDFW changed the game in the last week or so) is open for silvers as well as pinks. The Snohomish has tons of bank access and so does the Sky. Fish the Snohomish if looking for decent pinks for the smoker. Those Sky fish are pretty knarly. You can take silvers in the Snohomish/Sky on spoons, spinners, corkies and yarn, corkies and eggs, corkies and shrimp, and by plunking. Don't hesitate to try different gear and colors. Jigs will also work. Look at a map of the area to locate roads that lead to either river and do some exploring. Too many places to list here. If you would like more info as to access spots email me at chumkiller@yahoo.com

Good luck and tight lines

Heya Coug, Glad you found this site. Its the A#1 salmon/steelhead site on the net. These guys are steering ya right.
Remember The WA Refuge pink fishing trip is next Sat the 15th.

Bruce
aka Coho

thanks for your help. I am planning on trying Saturday morning.

Coug

Fished the Sky/Snoho on Saturday. Seems to me that the lure of choice was the Pink BuzzBomb.

Cast out, yank really hard, and watch the fish bite with their a**holes, bellies, fins, or humps.

If I saw one person using this technique, I saw a thousand.

I really liked the dude in the sled up at the Nordstrom Hole screaming at an old man to "reel! reel! reel!" as they kept bringing in foul buzzbomb hooked humpoids. At one point, it looked like a damn trout farm. There must have been a thousand fish in that spot alone!

So can you see the fish in this river or is it really dark? Was anyone catching them the good old fashion way (in the mouth)?

Coug

Coug, sullys got the LEGAL technique down pat!! He will teach ya!

Coug

Don't get me wrong - we did see a lot of fair hooked fish. Most of our fish were fair hooked - and I say most because with so many fish even we accidently foul hooked a fish or two.

The thing about these humps are that they usually travel in huge schools. If you see a few jumping, there's a thousand more below them. Toss a buzzbomb in the school, yank and few times, and you can easily see how the fish are foul hooked.

The plunkers seem to do ok with bait. Action seemed a little slow, but I doubt any of those fish were foul hooked.

If you were in a drift boat, I'd give you other techniques that would result in hundreds of fish caught, and most (can't say none) would not be foul hooked. We had great success with Dik Nites, small jigs, flies, and plugs.

We released all our fish, thank you.

Still are lots of humpies in the river. I've been fishing them for about a week (after several years of not fishing). I've got so many smoked or ready for the smoker, that I've moved into the CNR mode. I did keep a couple of still pretty bright hens last night, below the 522 bridge. Pink Spin n Glo's and shrimp seem to be the favorite weapon.
I am "re-hooked" on river fishing. Got some eggs to cure, and am already asking everyone, "when will the silvers show?"
Does it get any better than this?.....oh..yea...I forgot....deer season is only a couple weeks away...

My neighbor checked out the Lowell ramp in
Everett at noon today. Guys were bringing in
quite a few silvers from the lower Snohomish,
and the humpies that were cought were still
ocean brigh. Looks like it's time to get out
the coho gear on this river !!

Cigar