OMG, we found the missing coho! If I could rate this report a 10, I would give it 20. The day was the single best day I have had fishing our local waters in 50 years. I was blessed when my son in law said he would be able to join me. Being a Navy boy, he and my daughter are being relocated to the east coast in March. But next month he is deploying, so our time with him is quickly coming to an end. We just love him and it will be a sad day once they leave Oak Harbor.

My truck grenaded back in late July and when we got it back last week, I was good and ready for a fishing trip. I had invited our daughter and my son in law to join me but she was up to her elbows in something and wouldn’t be able to join us. Fortunately, my son in law was able to trade a night watch shift and join me. He is so fun to fish with, being an inland Texas boy anything bigger than a crappie (nothing against crappie fishing...) is a big deal and he gets so excited.

Sunday morning was finally here and I was going fishing. Alarm set for 4:00 I was hopelessly awake at 2:00 so got up made lunch and prepped for departure. I was rolling out of the driveway at 4:30 and hit Holiday Market for a bit of non-ethanol and one of their breakfast burritos. I arrived at the Cornet Bay launch with a full tummy and a plan, launched the boat and had things ready to go just as my guest fisherman arrived.

We discussed my plan as we motored southwest from Deception Pass. The plan was a little nuts, but it came together. I had planned to fish tide the rips between Partridge Bank and Eastern Bank. If that didn’t work out, I had a backup plan to fish the tide rips between Partridge Point and Rocky Point on the west side of Whidbey Island. We were on station on the west side of Partridge Bank by 7:00 and were gear down shortly thereafter.

Almost immediately one of the riggers pops and we are fish on. It was clear that the fish was not a coho. It entertained us with numerous subsurface runs and had a serious motor. Eventually as we slid the net under the 20# class wild chinook the second rod pops. We quickly release the first fish as we engage fish # 2. Again a chinook, although not quite as big as the first one but it was still a worthy opponent. Another safe release, gear reset we are fish on again! Just as we start the battle the second rod is out of the clip and we are into our second double of the morning. As with before both were chinook and were safely released. Our first 4 fish of the day were chinook caught at 30’ in the tide rips pulling coho gear at 3.5 mph. A great start to our day and a pace setter for the next 6 hours.

As we moved west chasing tide rips, we started catching coho. We had non stop action for 6 solid hours with numerous doubles to keep us on our toes. We caught many wild coho, all safely released, lost a few and caught & released scads of others. I told Brandon that he’ll be telling his kids about the good ole days. “I remember when I was in my early 20’s, your granddad and I went out and caught 30 salmon in one day. Yup, those were the good ole days…”.

We were running green and red 11” flashers chased by either a green commercial trolling spoon, vaguely resembling a Coho Killer spoon or a large green/white trolling fly. That was it; we didn’t really have to cycle through gear. I did run a few other offerings for the heck of it but the gear previously noted had the edge. We were running 34” 30# fluorocarbon leaders. Our trolling speed varied between 3 and 4 mph and we ran the downriggers between 30 and 120 feet. Most of our action was at 30-60’ working the bumpy side of the tide rips.

The day was incredible, 6 hours of nonstop action. The quality of the released wild coho was impressive, some were pushing 15 pounds plus. It was a day for the record books and I am so thankful to have been able to share it with my son in law.

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