Salmon behavior

Fishing is just hunting under water and one important difference between land-based hunting skill and just dumb luck is knowing one's quarry.  I am wondering about migrating salmon and their relationship to inland waters' tide.

Salmon are driven by the "smell" of their ancestral fresh waters.  They are following a scent trail from the ocean through (in my case) Puget Sound, and into one of the many river systems.  My guess is that if you could track the outflow of a particular river through the Sound and into the ocean you could predict the path the fish would take who are headed to that particular river.  I suspect this has been done by quite a few graduate students.

Like all wild critters salmon are also driven  by energy conservation/management.  So salmon are are driven to follow a scent trail yet not waste energy doing so.  They need to save their energy for the orgy at the end of their trek.

I believe "common knowledge" says salmon fishing is most productive around the slack tide.  Why?  What are the fish doing during the slack tide that makes them easier to catch?  For that matter what are the fish doing during flood and ebb tides?  During a flood tide in order to follow a scent trail a fish would have to swim faster than the tidal current otherwise it would lose a meaningful scent trail.  This seems a good strategy for covering a fair bit of distance with a minimum of expended energy.  Add a knot to the incoming tidal flow and you get an almost free ride.  So I would generally expect salmon to be booking it and not feeding during an incoming tide.  During the outgoing tide they get a good snootful of scent trail, but have to pay a large energy premium to fight the tidal current and make progress.  I would generally expect a salmon to hole up in a back eddy and rest and/or feed during an outgoing tide.  Slack would be a time of variation.  Some of the fish would continue their trek, others would continue to rest and/or feed.   And behavior may differ between the two kinds of slack. 

If my reasoning is sound I would expect fishing during outgoing (shoreward of the tidal rip) and slack would be most productive. 

What's wrong with my reasoning?

What the salmon is doing is usually not at the top of my list.  What the bait doing is.    Find the bait, you found the salmon.

-Allen

I like Allen's take.  The fuel is a huge factor.

In my very limited salmon fishing experience I would guess that salmon fishing effectively is matter of knowing the tides/underwater geography.
Almost as important as the current tide conditions are the recent tide conditions(1-2 swings).  Most fish are lazy ass opportunist.  A fish wont burn up 800 calories to consume 500 in bait.  plan to be just on the shallow side of their rest stop on an incoming tide. Match with bait...then match with BBQ.

I usually spend  about 3 hours researching 1:Fishing reports 2. location 3. local weather 4. recent tides 5. NOAA charts and theeennnnn 1 hour talking my wife into letting me go.
Brian.     

I usually spend  about 3 hours researching 1:Fishing reports 2. location 3. local weather 4. recent tides 5. NOAA charts and theeennnnn 1 hour talking my wife into letting me go.

A very wise man.. 

Z

while salmon are predators, they are more so opportunistic feeders.  that's why using something that resembles an injured fish works so well.  and as you said, the closer they get to their spawning grounds, the more energy conservation and consuming enough food to last them the trip up the river becomes the dominant instinct.  when tides are rippin, it takes more energy to chase down food.  when the water is more still, such as a little before and a little after slack tide, the feeding is easier.  bait fish still school up as a defense mechanism and salmon will hover around the edges and pick off the slower, weaker fish. 

the thing about the back eddies is also true.  Pt Defiance is the perfect example of that.  during an outgoing tide, bait swirls around in a big eddy just northeast of the point. 

my best guess is the lack of current around slack tide makes for easier swimming and chasing food so the energy spent vs. energy consumed is greatest around then.

i don't think that the scent trail makes much difference in the stuff your fat face phase.  i think they'll still somewhat close to the mouth of their natal waters until some trigger, usually a combination of temperature and barometric pressure, kicks on the spawning instinct they stop feeding and then they seek out the river and head on up.

speaking of the injured fish thing, after trying my hand at trolling and jigging, i think i'm going to focus more of jigging in the near future and try to get good at it.  it seems to be more productive for the energy spend than trolling.  it's not too hard.  watch the FF, when you come across a school of fish, stop and drop.  easy and it works!

Bobby