Nehalem 09/21/20

Got out to Nehalem for my first time on Monday. 
I put in at Wheeler, and started out fishing cut herring on the last couple hours of the ebb tide, but couldn’t get any love from old blackmouth.
As the flood tide started pushing in, I rode it up to the 101 bridge, gave up on trolling, and started target casting to the jumping coho that seemed to be taunting me. 
I figured it was an exercise in futility (if it worked, everyone would be doing it; right?), but on my 2nd cast, a big salmon (assume it was a coho) hammered my spinner about 2 feet off my rod tip.  Things just completely blew up at that point.  He actually banged the side of my Hobie, then shot underneath, peeling off line.  He managed to get wrapped around the mirage drive, and by the time I yanked it, he had straightened out 2 treble hooks and was gone. 
I was kind of bummed, but encouraged at the same time. 
So basically, I spent the rest of the afternoon wearing myself out chasing the jumping coho. 
Finally, around 4:30 I switched to a gold and silver 360 flasher, along with a gold, orange and white, RAF roundel-type flasher, and started trolling the building ebb tide back. 
Just before the 101 bridge, I got a massive takedown, and the fight was on.  About 10 minutes into it, a seal started stalking me, and I wasn’t very optimistic about ever landing that fish, as it was making long, line-peeling runs, with the seal in a holding pattern about 20 yards away.
Finally, I got it in and after a couple missed netting attempts, got it on board.  It ended being a wild female chinook that went 22 pounds.
A boat angler had pulled in close to watch my little drama, and took a couple pics of me with my prize. 
I caught and released a wild coho on the same setup about 15 minutes later, and slid back into Wheeler at dusk with the ebb tide ripping. 
All-in-all, a pretty good 1st day, especially after staring down another skunk!

Congratulations!

Nice work! 22 pounder is a solid fish  .

excellent.  I love days that involve changing tactics and targets.  and chaos, makes kayak fishing that much more fun.

That's a beast!  Nice work on grinding it out.

-Mark-