Between the local closures and juggling schedules planning a trip is becoming a bit of a challenge. If I’m fishing solo its less of an issue, I just go and hopefully learn something to pass on later. If I have guests, it’s a whole different deal. To be honest I probably plan a trip to death. I have a plan, back-up plan and a back-up plan for the back-up plan. I do this even when taking my wife and or a frequent fishing buddy out. For them it is all behind the scenes and they have no idea what I put myself through.

Sunday a fishing buddy, my wife and I decided to do an early scouting trip for coho in the Edmonds area. After a quick stop at Holiday Market for non-ethanol we had the boat launched and were pulling away from the 10th Street launch in Everett before 0500. The “Plan” was to head for the oil docks off of Edmonds and search for early coho. We dropped a string of crab pots and got busy.

Right off the bat we caught a very nice pink salmon, a quick release it looked like it was going to be a good day. Feeling confident we cycled through a number of humpies and fat probably resident coho, all released. After a half hour or so the door slammed shut and the bite went dead. We weren’t even seeing anything on the meter but kept up the search.

Finally it was time for plan B. We pulled the pots and found nothing but seaweed, not even any bait or chicken bones. Somebody had stripped our pots and even took the bait. Crab gear stowed we moved up to Possession Point. Mike Carey and gang had reported hot fishing in the area so off we went.

Gear down, right off the bat we were into a nice chinook. After a bit of a battle, I slide the net under a very nice clipped chinook. MA 9 is closed to chinook retention so my wife said thank you and we released her prize safe and sound. From that point it was a hump-a-polusa with a few wild coho mixed in. Good fishing but it was decision time.

Do we head in or move to the back-up to the back-up plan? The crew decided to keep fishing. OK, now I’m on the spot. We didn’t have anything in the box and I had to find fish. We moved to the outer bar on the west side of Possession and sent the gear down. As I was running the second rigger down the first rod pops and we are into a respectable fish. Unfortunately, it was another nice chinook and we released it. That fish was the plug to the dam though, for the next 2 hours we enjoyed nonstop action. We had multiple doubles and I don’t know how many takedowns the fishing was incredible. We were getting a mix of mature chinook, coho and a few pinks.

We ran pretty much the same gear all day, 11” flashers and trolling flies with salted herring strips. The flies were running 36” behind the flashers and our trolling speed varied between 3.0 and 4.0 mph. The most productive flasher was a moonglow/glow back and a light green/glow fly definitely had an edge. The flashers were running around 20’ behind the release clip. WE were generally chasing meter marks or bait balls with most of the fish being hooked off of meter marks.

Where it looked like the day was going to be a bust it turned into a blockbuster afternoon of salmon fishing. My stress level was turned down to low and fish or no fish it had been a great day chatting with my wife and fishing buddy Andy. We ended up with a box full of hatchery coho and memories of what will be the good ole days…

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