I met my son around 7am and we fished at the Des Moines pier. The low tide was at 6:24am with high tide at 2:09pm. There were only 3 people jigging for salmon at the end of the pier. I asked them if there were any pinks but he only told me of a guy who came out and caught 2 in row a while ago. Oh well we would try.
We gave it our best shot but no pinks. We did see one jump I thought was one but it was way in shore. He got a small Coho we kept (his first salmon) on a DPS 2.
I had brought some old frozen herring so we filleted them and put them on double hook setups, we were casting out and reeling it back in looking for a good spin. A few other people had come out to fish. One of the original guys jigging got a 22 inch king and then left. Meanwhile my son and I were having fun with little salmon chasing our herring. It was a good learning experience for my son. He got to see the way they respond to the spin, how they hit it and how far they chase it. We kept at it until all the herring was gone and I had to leave at noon. He also caught a rockfish.
But what got his heart beating fast was the big one (as big as if not bigger than the one the guy left with) that came after his bait. Of course it didn’t bite it. Toward the end we were the only ones on the pier.
I think part of the fact so few people were there is they charge for parking now.

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