Although I fish the rivers about 99% of the time now, I fished the sound for many years and did very well. Cigar showed me the ropes when I was a teenager and he is a helluva fish slaying machine out on the sound. I'll shed some insight on what I know about hooknose and what to do if the nets get heavy like they are now.
A lot of the smaller fish in the 3 poundish range will fit through the gillnets. That's why it seems that many of the big boys have disappeared and a lot of smaller fish are showing up. To find fish when nets are going full force you have to look in one of two places:
The grocery store or...............
Way in the hell out in the middle of the sound. Most of the commercials I've seen in the sound are right there in the same areas we all like to fish. Coho will follow baitfish in the upper water column wheter the water is 50 feet deep or 1500 feet deep. Although there most of the coho will migrate along the shoreline there are a still a lot that you can intercept way out there in the middle of nowhere. Find some tide rips way out there and you will find fish.
I live in Richmond Beach right by the sound and I watch these commercial boats clean house out there. They are very effective as both seiners and gillnetters on coho as since the fish are near the surface and can be scooped up or cut off easily. The are all within a half mile of the shoreline.
Good luck out there and don't catch too many of the hooknose because I am looking forward to slaying them in the rivers
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