I finally have figured out why the large schools of fish off my beach (Lagoon PT) have not been hitting anything. It is because they are Atlantic Salmon! I thought these fish were acting a little different then the typical schools of sivers that come through (lazy jumping, jumping wrong direction, finning on the surface). Mystery solved.

Hopefully these pictures post.

They jump tail first?

The pictures aren't showing up.

I would have guessed that Atlantic Salmon would be more eager to bite (assuming that they recently escaped from the cosy well-fed confines of a net pen)

I will be interested in seeing the pictures.

I have to agree with Cheapskate - they usually are fairly agressive fish; at lest following various lures and are pretty catchable in the rivers. If they are escapees the normal behavior is for them to make bee lines to a number of rivers where there usually is a spate of reports of them being caught. Anyone hear anything of a major break-out from any of the net pens?

Tight lines
Curt

I would be very surprised and extremely disappointed if Atlantics were present in large schools in Area 9.

I will withhold my final thoughts until I can see the pictures.

All I can say is I hope they aren't.

http://i401.photobucket.com/albums/pp100/alpglass/Atlantic%20Salmon/AtlanticSalmon004.jpg

The only Atlantic I have caught was the most aggresive fish I have ever landed. I saw one sitting in a river, threw a tube jig about 30 feet upstream and this fish took off after it the second it hit the water. He swam 20 feet upstream from where he had been sitting the whole time (I saw him, and tied on the only lure I had) and totally hammered it. It was in the middle of the day at full sun...

http://i401.photobucket.com/albums/pp100/alpglass/Atlantic%20Salmon/AtlanticSalmon005.jpg

Yep, you got that post in right before me. Your right thats an Atlantic...

Wasn't there a escape announced earlier in B.C.?

You need to contact WDFW. That is serious stuff if there is a large school of those running around. They have the potential to go to the same river and mess with the natural fish.

Already notified them, they mentioned the escape in Canada as the only one they know of. I really don't think they understand that there are very large numbers of these fish milling around Admirilaty Inlet. I can't confirm that all the fish that I thought were silvers that just weren't biting are indeed Atlantic, but I would assume they are by there odd behavior. If so there are large amount of them.

I am sure Addicted and Todd have encountered the same fish as they posted a week or so ago about the fish that were locked up.

here's a link I found re a recent escape

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/369697_salmon05.html

throw pebbles or catfood in the water. The Atlantics love em..... They will swarm them like they do food in the pens. We have had several large escapes off the south end of BI in my lifetime that made for some interesting fishing..... I remember another year where the canadians had a large pen excape. We were catching hog atlantic salmon in the elwha for the next year....

Neal

Spots on the gill plates.

tmr360 - so what gear did you catch it on? I've not heard any local (Whidbey) reports of other Atlantic salmon being landed - I hope this one was a fluke!

With regards to fish jumping the "Wrong" way? Don't put too much thought into these fish... they will drive you crazy

Jeff D., my neighbor caught it and it was foul hooked. These fish that are jumping are not biting, they are definitely Atlantics. I have been fishing the shallows and can clearly see them swimming under the boat.

As far as these fish jumping the "wrong way", they are jumping the wrong direction because they are not silvers. In the area I fish and off my beach silvers ALWAYS travel north to south, this has been the case for the 33 years I have been fishing here. The only exception are chum.

BTW, nice push of ocean fish arrived today in deeper water, caught 5 all wild on this mornings incoming tide, 120' on the downrigger. This new rule of releasing wild coho sucks, two of the fish I released were bleeders.

How about sticking a hook in one of the pieces of catfood?

Or sticking a hook in a chunk of bait, and letting it flutter down the water column like a piece of fish food tossed into a pen.

No matter the current? That's certainly not my experience. I see coho at least changing direction up & down the beach based on current direction.

-S

On the west side of Whidbey it is always been the case that they travel N. to S., I really don't know about elsewhere.

Yeah, there are defnately Atlantics around, and not just at Lagoon, they are further south too. The non-biters from a couple weeks ago were silvers that just went off the bite. These Atlantics just arrived recently. And yes, they do jump the wrong way, not just in direction, and the spotted heads are not too coho like when they jump near your boat.

Hope you can catch as many of them as possible. Not a lot of options for removal of large numbers, if at all possible, that doesn't include nets which will impact our indigenous fish.

I have been fishing the beaches a lot this year and have seen fish like one's you claim to be Atlantic salmon. I think these fish are a mix of Sockeye and Coho. I have seen both types of fish caught out of these schools of fish that are not very aggresive. Sockeye tend not to feed on bait fish and focus more on krill which explains why they are hard to catch. The schools of Coho that have been moving through are somewhat aggressive but seem not to hit unless the bait is placed directly in front of them. They seem to be on a mission, ie heading for the rivers. I don't doubt that there are a few stray Atlantic salmon in the area but as for large schools, its not very likely.

I was messing around the beaches near Hansville with the kids during a minus tide and there were a number of AS heads in the water. I just figured someone had a connection to some crab bait, may not?

Jumping the wrong way? As in like tail first?
In my experience, schools of coho mill around in all directions. Obviously the trend is toward the river of their choice, but I don't believe any rule that says they only jump south....

So they jump the same way as fish do on the Skok then, eh ?

There is no rule on which direction the coho jump. But, I guarantee you if you go to Bush, Lagoon, the Bombing range, Mutiny Bay, it would take you looking at 1000 fish jumping to see one jump the other way. They just don't around here. Now and then at Ft. Casey they do. Sometimes at Double Bluff they do. But you never see it along Whidbey shores unless you are out a ways following a rip. Same thing applies to steelhead and humpies, only king seem to differ much. Now go over to Mid-channel and they jump however they want, but not here, not in 22 years of fishing these beaches.