Puget Sound Coho?

This season seems to be pretty poor for coho salmon fishing in Puget Sound so far. I have seen very little in terms of positive indications to date:
* The Everett Derby reports look painful: just about 8 Coho per 100 fishermen...ouch.
* Recent reports look dismal across PS areas here: http://www.salmonuniversity.com/or_fishing_reports.html
* I visited the locks yesterday and saw about a dozen salmon, mostly kings with a few coho. The level of the lake and the outflow at the locks was as high as I've ever seen it.
I heard rumors of more fish coming from the straits last week, but little seem to have materialized, are they heading strait to the rivers given rain of late? Anybody tried for them at Lake Washington?. Anybody has some brighter news or shall we start to get ready for chums/blackmouth? Trying to keep the spirits high...

have you looked at the reports on washingtonlakes.com?? they reported a very good run of silvers into the nisqually river delta 3 days ago.

I think they'll start coming through strong in a few weeks. Just like the chinook the coho look like they're really late.

Z

i'm going to hit the Nisqy Delta and the 1st 2 miles of the river at the 8:25 AM high tide... intend to do like hooknose taught me and let the tidal surge push me up river.

launching from Luhr beach if anyone wants to join me... just be ready to deal with crowds and heavy boat traffic...

 I've been fishing the west side of Whidby Island. 3 to 4 days a week, for the past month. 50-50 boat/yak - beach. 6 to 8 hrs a day. Who said being retired wasn't hard work! In that time frame I've only landed 14 coho and missed about 3 times what I've landed. Most days I haven't seen any jumpers. Only on 3 days have there been a large number of jumpers around the points at tide changes. The only good thing is that the fish are about 1/3 larger than in past years. There should be another 3 weeks of saltwater coho here in north sound.

Wolverine are you mooching or trolling? If trolling, what kind of gear and depth? If you don't mind. I need all the help I can get.

Wolverine, that doesn't sound that good at all.     How does it compare to years past?

-Allen

 Islandson,
I'm a troller from boat or yak and float/herring from the beach. I do OK on kings mooching but do much better trolling for the coho. Kings tend to stack at certain points and follow fairly predictable near shore travel lanes whereas coho are where you find them. Coho are normally associated with tidal rips and eddy edges rather than shorelines.
 For fishing from the boat its almost always flasher and hoochie. From the yak its a large white or chartreuse/white dodger with a whole herring behind it. Depth? From right at the surface to 25 feet at daylight to 90 feet later in the day. I've caught silvers as deep as 150 feet but I only go that deep from the boat with its electric riggers. From the beach its a whole or plug cut herring under a float or if the coho are not holding I use rotators, kastmasters, or krocodile spoons.

Allen,
This year has been a real stinker numbers wise. Looking back through my logbooks the only year worse was 2006. 2008 was OK. Last year at this point in time I'd landed 57 silvers and in 2007 I had 61. Prior to 2006 I was still working full time but still had very good numbers all the way back into the early 70's. Interestingly the past 3 odd numbered years with pink salmon runs the silvers were far more aggressive than even numbered years without pinks. Even though there isn't a lot of overlap in their run timing. In prior years the silvers seemed to be be better biters in non humpy years.

ok,
just call me Pepe' LePew... while i saw fish on the finder , once i started up the mouth of the Nisqually, 6 of the resident furbag population followed me up to the 2nd bend past the I 5 Bridge... so, i wasn't gonna catch fish no matter what...  coming back out and moving north towards the old Dupont explosives wharf didnt help either..

which begs the question; who is telling the lies in their fishing reports on washingtonlakes.com??

boats coming in behind me around 1:15pm had the same results. btw, anyone ever seen a yellow North River sled with "Team North River boats" on it before? they were really interested in my T15..

The WALakes.com reports are sometimes fake.  Several Puyallup reports were faked this year, in what looked like an attempt to keep people away from the Skokomish.

Allen,
This year has been a real stinker numbers wise. Looking back through my logbooks the only year worse was 2006. 2008 was OK. Last year at this point in time I'd landed 57 silvers and in 2007 I had 61. Prior to 2006 I was still working full time but still had very good numbers all the way back into the early 70's. Interestingly the past 3 odd numbered years with pink salmon runs the silvers were far more aggressive than even numbered years without pinks. Even though there isn't a lot of overlap in their run timing. In prior years the silvers seemed to be be better biters in non humpy years.

Interesting that you mention better coho fishing on pink salmon years, because I have the same personal experience at least for the last 4 years! I am still working full time, so not much time to explore. Congrats on your busy retirement, if you can call fishing being busy!

Wolverine thanks for the input. I'm going to nisqually to try trolling.