Clayman:
What I found interesting was how the early summer bite in the ocean was HOT, with fish seemingly everywhere. Then some funky ocean conditions set in, and the fish scattered. Ocean Coho fishing devolved into more of a grind in late summer, and I was damn surprised to see almost half of the non-select season quota left on the table as September came to a close.
I sure wouldn't run any stats on my personal observations, but I seemed to notice far less bait in the nearshore areas as the summer progressed, especially compared to last year. Nearly all the Coho I kept in that period had empty stomachs. It gives the impression that the fish were there in early July, but largely disappeared by late August. Where did they go?
workhard:
--- Quote from: Clayman on October 29, 2019, 03:46:50 PM ---What I found interesting was how the early summer bite in the ocean was HOT, with fish seemingly everywhere. Then some funky ocean conditions set in, and the fish scattered. Ocean Coho fishing devolved into more of a grind in late summer, and I was damn surprised to see almost half of the non-select season quota left on the table as September came to a close.
I sure wouldn't run any stats on my personal observations, but I seemed to notice far less bait in the nearshore areas as the summer progressed, especially compared to last year. Nearly all the Coho I kept in that period had empty stomachs. It gives the impression that the fish were there in early July, but largely disappeared by late August. Where did they go?
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Don't know about Oregon waters but in WA they we concentrated in pockets of cooler water during their ocean phase. If you look at the NOAA SST anamoly charts over the summer you can see just how nasty it was. WA saw lower numbers of hatchery fish coming in along with a really alarmingly small body size and shut down a lot of their Puget sound fisheries early because it looked a lot like the coho apocalypse of 2015.
bogueYaker:
--- Quote from: workhard on October 29, 2019, 04:36:44 PM ---WA saw lower numbers of hatchery fish coming in along with a really alarmingly small body size and shut down a lot of their Puget sound fisheries early because it looked a lot like the coho apocalypse of 2015.
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I've been wondering about how the run compared to the forecasted run, and to past runs. Does WDFW release any sort of analysis of the salmon season? Something like - "Here's what we forecasted, here's what actually happened, and here's why we think it might have happened"?
Personally, this was my best salmon season ever (also my first, but I'm trying to be a glass half full kind of guy). By the numbers, how does it compare to past seasons?
workhard:
.
bogueYaker:
Hey workhard, thanks for pointing me in the right direction and providing me with the terminology of the items. I'll be taking a look at this over the winter -- I'll try to avoid asking lazy questions :)