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....

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.