20 second coho

My wife, Mary, and I spent the weekend camping at South Beach State Park with my sister-in-law and friends of hers whom we have got to know fairly well through the years. We had never camped with these friends though, and although I knew they fished, I wasn't sure if I could work in any fishing, especially after Mary made a point of wanting to do some sightseeing in Yaquina Bay. We launched from the great launch at the South Beach marina and had a nice tour of the lower bay on Saturday. I noticed that while there was a lot of crabbing taking place in the lower bay there wasn't any fishing going on.

It got decided that the women would go shopping on Sunday, and that the 23 year old son of the friends, Hayden, and I would be able to go after some salmon. Hayden wasn't an experienced salmon fisherman and had not been in a kayak before. I hadn't caught a salmon from my yak. I knew one reason we hadn't seen fishermen in the lower bay was because the favored salmon spots were further upriver, but I figured that because of our relative inexperience we should make things easy on ourselves and take the easy launch at South Beach. After all, the fish have to swim past there on their way upriver, don't they?

Long story shorter, we rigged up at the launch, and when we got to the main channel, I said to Hayden, “I don't know if this is the best place for salmon, but we won't catch anything if we don't put something in the water”. Not 20 seconds later, BAM – FISH ON BABY! Hayden hadn't even got his rig in and he thought I had hung up on the breakwater, it was so quick. It wasn't a particularly spectacular fight, but there was a couple of jumps and one good drag whining run, so it was fun enough. Hayden netted his first salmon, and I got my first kayak salmon. Nice bright 6# native coho hen.
 
After getting re-rigged, we set out upriver. Hayden was having trouble with his borrowed rig, so I let him take mine while I worked on his reel. We trolled up by the NOAA  pier, and saw two boats jigging for herring along there, and one told us he had coho following them in. We got past the end of the pier and into the crab pots and eel grass. A local kayaker paddled by and suggested we go up past the gas plant, which was advice I'd gotten from a co-worker, but that was a bit of a pedal, so Hayden and I decided to turn around and make a swing back up current past the NOAA pier again. We got about to the west end of the NOAA pier, about 200 yards from where my salmon hit, when Hayden yelled” FISH ON!”. This fish took a lot longer to bring to the net. Hayden got him close enough to see five different times and four times he took off on long runs and several jumps. One run went back under the Oasis with a jump behind us. The nearby herring jiggers gave us a big cheer on that one. When Hayden finally got him tired enough, he brought in a 12# native coho buck.

We figured that our chances for bagging a couple of Chinook were slim, so we called it a day after 40 minutes of fishing. That 6#'r sure tasted good.

For those who like to know, both were caught on cut plug, blue dyed, green label herring in a Sure Spin herring helmet behind a 6” green/red Kone Zone flasher.

Great job Sherman - awesome report! 

I miss camping at South Beach.  We used to go there the last weekend in September each year - camping and crabbing.  Many fun times.  The weather looks to have been as nice as we saw up at Nehalem Bay on Saturday.

-Sam

Wow, one of the best reports.  Sounds like a great time!

Awesome Sherm. Those Coho grill up nice.

Nice job on the fish Sherman,we should call ya salmonater.  I'm still hoping for my first yak salmon as I got my first salmon from my buddy's pb , I was exited and think the yak salmon will have me smiling like you guys.

That is a great story....congrats!

Excellent Report Sherman!  That was a whole lot of 1st's in just 40 minutes of fishing.

-Mark-

Nice! I bet the 23yr old will tell his buddies how easy salmon fishing is. Ha ha
Great story and congrats!

Hayden had caught a salmon on a charter and is an experienced trout fisherman, so he knows no fishing is too easy, but he is wanting to go out and get a kayak - or talk his Dad into buying a kayak

I want to give a shout out to all the guys who post videos of their fishing trips. Although I have only 2 kayak salmon nettings (I netted my brother-in-law's coho at PC) and was able to coach Hayden through one, I am 2-0 mostly because I have watched dozens of good examples, and have in my mind not to get rushed and use good technique. Thank you guys!

That's great to go someplace new and figure things out all on your own. Congratulations. Yaquina is on my list again this year. I've only fished there twice a couple of years ago.

  Way to "make it happen" Sherman. That is a great report. Felt I was there with you.

  Aren't you glad you didn't go shopping

  Won't be too long til you're looking at 20-0 if you keep at it. Still a lot of fishing to do this year.

  I also appreciate other folks posting videos to learn techniques, areas, and more about our friends and how they react when catching or sometimes losing fish. While I never post any video (even though I do have a Go-Pro Black 3) I do hope some of my posts help out other people somehow.


  Go get some more Sherman

Way to go, Sherman! Glad you got some efficient time on the water. I love catching fish in places other people have passed by. What is it Spot says?.. "make the report instead of chase the report" or something like that.

Really cool to share that experience with a younger guy too. He's probably a yakker for life now.

Sweet sherman!! I also caught my first coho in the yak on Friday on the Nehalem by wheeler during the rain it was epic for sure and sat was good too!! Unfortunately I didn't get many pics, but rigged up the same way flashers and spinner is what I caught mine on, Lightning strikes spinners! And herring too

Way to go smilingkayaker! Those coho sure are fun to catch with all their aerobatics and rolling and thrashing. Hope there is many more in all our futures...