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A friend and I fished Sekiu for salmon Monday-Thursday morning. This trip was a huge learning experience for me. My first time fishing Sekiu for salmon; and my first time manning an electric downrigger (double stacking while steering the boat). First, electric downriggers are awesome! Probably the best investment I've ever made. Second, I didn't get to use it as much as I'd like because rough waters kept us on shore about half the trip. We fished 30-110 down in 40-350 feet of water (a lot of trial and error). We ended up fishing 50-65 feet down after we had a better idea of what we were doing; regardless of depth.

Monday was action-packed! Unfortunately the action came from shakers. I think we caught about 1,000. Well, maybe more like 12-15, but it felt like a thousand. Coho killers/plug cut herring/hoochies/Coyote spoons-- they liked em all. Our only keeper was a black rockfish we caught in the bay on the way to the docks. It hit a green Coho killer (pic 1).

Tuesday was a little better-- the shakers were out in force again, but my buddy got a decent hatchery king (pic 2) and also released an even decent-er wild king. I released a wild Coho, and lost what I assume was a big king while trolling back to the dock. I also lost my lunch in the Strait-- apparently multitasking in chop makes me green! We caught two more rockfish-- this time around three caves (pic 3). One hit a Coho Killer one hit a Kingfisher spoon.

Wednesday was pretty hard to get out in-- rough waters. Luckily after Tuesday I had my sea legs. When we did get out, we got batted around pretty good and only had a few shaker releases to show for it.

Thursday morning I finally got a glimpse of what Sekiu is all about! At three caves around 5:40am I landed my first keeper Sekiu King-- it was only about 30 feet down (pic 4). It hit on a green/silver Kingfisher spoon. Five minutes later my friend caught and released a wild king in the 25-30 pound range. It hit about 5 feet under the surface as we were about to drop the downrigger ball. It was the biggest fish he had ever caught. It hit on a large green speckle Coyote spoon. I caught a pink (pic 4, again) and we released at least half a dozen shakers before calling the trip at 10 am. It was hard to leave, Thursday appeared to be a beautiful day!

At any rate, it was a great learning experience, but overall fishing was very spotty according to the fish checkers. I didn't hear any numbers for Monday and Tuesday, but Wednesday my checker said "only a few" kings had come in due to the rough seas and Thursday only 5 boats out of 15 checked had brought in a king. Also, just from talking to folks it seemed like a lot of experienced people were averaging a keeper king a day. However, things seemed to be picking up Thursday with the improved conditions!

BARCHASER10

7/26/2013 1:52:00 PM

I was over at CQ same time as you, 3 rods. I posted a report yesterday. We kept 8 marked Chinooks and released 5 unmarked Chinooks 12 to a dandy that had to be high 20's. The marked Chinooks, 4 were decent 12-16 and 4 were marked feeders 6-7. Also kept 1 marked Silver and 1 Pink and released 5 unmarked Silvers. Kind of tough released that many nice Chinooks. We had the best bite on the incoming off of Eagle Beach. We stayed at Vanb Ripers. What kind of boat were you in?.. We were in my Seahawk, blue trim.

Fish-or-man?

7/27/2013 12:53:00 AM

Thanks for the extra info! I saw your report before I posted, and pretty sure I remember seeing you a couple times out there. I was in a little blue Lund (14-footer). It's basically a glorified row boat, but it happily surpassed my expectations for handling the rougher waters!

BARCHASER10

7/27/2013 11:20:00 AM

I think I remember your boat too. It was very rough when that outgoing minus tide really got going combined with the afternoon west wind. Once I took some water over my bow in the Eagle Beach area which is very rare for my boat. It must have got a little exciting in a 14 footer! I hear Lunds are pretty seaworthy for their size.

fishindude

7/30/2013 3:10:00 PM

Hey, I know you. We went to high school together...Anyway, Nice report! Looks like a fun trip! -GO TIGERS

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