Encouraging large lures for downrigger coho season

Shaker mortality means just one less large fish for next year. I know small lures can be effective, but how much fishing time do we all lose dragging and releasing shakers, with pretty much 100% mortality on that stock?

My friend said, "We got about 20 shakers the other day." What a waste of time and fishery resources. To me, it's no different than the commercial by-catch waste. Please think about using SLIGHTLY LARGER lures and baits to target large-sized hatchery fish. Let's preserve the run, save the wild shakers, and let them all grow for future fisheries.

Also, it might just help you get more keepers in the net!

Okay but the benefit of avoiding shakers would fall on mostly on Chinook rather than coho.

Recall that coho only have two age classes in the ocean. The youngest age class would have entered the ocean this past spring (March-April 2017). The older age class would have entered the ocean the same time the previous year (March-April 2016). There are no other age classes of coho in the ocean. After they spend their second summer in saltwater, they head back to freshwater to spawn. So all spawning coho are three-years old (gravel to gravel). They spend 1.5 years (18 months) in freshwater and 1.5 years in the ocean.

So there is only one age-class for coho harvest in the ocean fishery in the summer and early fall. The younger age class would only be about 8-10 inches in length. They’ll still be eating zooplankton and small shrimp. The older age class would be feeding on herring, anchovy, sand lance, and squid. That’s why anglers use cut-herring, spoons, and hoochies in saltwater.

Chinook are different. There may be multiple age classes in the ocean since they mature at various ages including 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 years in the salt. That is where the benefit of avoiding shakers would be most apparent since these fish would continue to feed and grow in the ocean, perhaps for several years.

If you want to use larger lures to attract larger coho, that’s great. But any coho big enough to hit a lure (of any size) will be spawning in the next month or two. Those coho won't be there next year.

I have never seen a more lethal-on-shaker lure than a coho killer. At least once per trip I would end up pithing one with the hook right between the eyes. And I even use a barrel swivel and long siwash so it's more of a hang-back rig like EyeDoc recommends. STILL kills them dead.

Well, not exactly. There are also coho that are smolting now; fall smolts and there are the "estuary smolts" that enter the estuary as fry/fingerlings and then head to the ocean later (fall? Winter? Spring?) But they are all out the aggressively feeding and are not of "desirable" size.

Coho also molt as age-2, and these may enter the salt at 350-400mm. Don't know if the migrate to sea or stay inshore and return the same year as they smolted.

There are actually, in a fully functioning ecosystem, coho that return to spawn as adults at age 2, 3, and 4. The management paradigm that emphasizes only spring smolts is what leads to almost independent brood year lines maturing as 3s which significantly reduces genetic interchange between broodyears

When I was Doc Donaldson's pond we got quite a few shakers that had survived. Some had a gouge on the side of the head that took an eye, some had the lower jaw split in the middle. They survived, but were not all that large.

cohoangler-
Ned has a very legitimate concern; all summer and continue into this fall the has been a huge number of "shaker" coho. You are correct these small coho are from this year's smolt release and are not likely to return to spawn until next fall. However for whatever reason many of this years smolts opted to remain in the Sound and are exceptionally large with most fish now in the 12 range. Suspect that the change in juvenile coho abundance and size is due in at least part much higher abundances of year of year herring and sand lance through out much of the sound.

The numbers of young coho I was catching in August while targeting adult Chinook was shocking. With smaller spoons and flashers the young coho were consistently out numbering juvenile coho as much as 8 or more to one. Even when I switch to plugs I would still catch several of those coho a morning.

No Ned's point in addition to switching to larger profile lures other methods of reducing incidental mortality on juvenile coho would include eliminating "stinger hooks", switch to large profile hoochies with large bait strips, and look to methods that do not involve use of flashers. Even a few minutes of being jerked around by those flashers seems to significantly increase mortalities. The action of those flashers not only jerk the shakers around they also make it difficult to detect that one has been hooked. Have had success by eliminating the flasher on my line and fish my lure above a "dummy" flasher. Using old school dodgers are in line fish flash type lures help to reduce the negative impacts from the flashers.

While it is true that eliminating flashers can lead to a less effective presentation that is off set by reducing fishing time lost due to undetected shakers on the line.

Curt

I've had the most success in reducing shaker mortality by fishing where there is a larger number of mature, returning and resident, hatchery coho...

too bad WDFW would rather force sportsmen south and fish over juveniles and feed the eagles and bullheads and let the indians feed the sportsmen...

I found switching to a very large single Siwash on my hoochies has reduced shaker hookups. Not sure if it also reduced adult landing percentage yet, need more encounters to be sure,

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Smalma - Thanks for the reply. I interpret your post as very good news. If the yearling coho are indeed susceptible to recreational angling, they are growing at a phenomenal rate. That suggests the yearlings have lots to eat, as you suggest. And that is very good news for future returns.

But I will admit my initial post was a bit confusing since it was intended to point out that the conservation measure being suggested (larger lures) would be beneficial for Chinook, perhaps more than it would for coho. That point seems to have gotten lost, perhaps because of the issues I raised about coho......

Haven't seen many 8-10" coho shakers off the beaches recently, most are larger then that. There are some blackmouth that size though.

As Curt mentioned, there is lots of bait this year between juvenile herring and sandlance.
I fished a beach last weekend before the MA 9 closure that had schools of sandlance like I haven't seen in years.
SF

Short leaders, bigger single hooks, and troll faster. Told my wife no more cohokillers at least not in 9 and 10. THose pink Brads Cut plug are dynamite. Single big hook is all I need.