Northwest Fishing Reports

alright guys your tecniques here please. How do you fish for the infamous pink salmon from shore? what do you use? how fast is your retreaval? do you jerk let it sink reel a little, jerk let it sink reel a little? Where in the water are your spoons (top, middle, bottom)? How fast to you retrieve a buzz bomb? Any and all info!

Thanks in advance guys (and gals)

Viet

A good shore lure is a half gold, half silver Dick Nite in either a Wee size or the next size up. Use about 3-4 foot of leader. Use a sliding dropper about 6-8 inches in length and a 1/2 ounce ball or bank sinker on the dropper. Cast this setup slightly upstream from you and let it touch bottom and slowly and steadily reel it back. This setup works best when the bottom is pretty much free of snags because you find yourself losing more gear than you want. It does spank the humpies and sivers though. Also Castmaster spoons in half metallic green and half silver and even the blue variation of this gets us lots of pinks. We used to fish at 522 from shore also and do well on these until we broadened our horizons with a boat. There is another great lure I use but not to many people know about it yet and I don't want it to get out, sorry I can't let this one go yet. Good luck.

I've been using pink jigs with no luck. The last time I was at the river the people catching them were using all silver spoons or spin and glows and sand shrimp. with the spin and glow and sand shrimp they attaching a 5 oz. pyramid weight with the sand shrimp and spin and glow on what looked like a 2 foot leader and they were casting it out into the middle of the river. They caught 3 fish in a matter of about 30 minutes. That's what I'm using next time I go out.

caseyweed wrote:I've been using pink jigs with no luck. The last time I was at the river the people catching them were using all silver spoons or spin and glows and sand shrimp. with the spin and glow and sand shrimp they attaching a 5 oz. pyramid weight with the sand shrimp and spin and glow on what looked like a 2 foot leader and they were casting it out into the middle of the river. They caught 3 fish in a matter of about 30 minutes. That's what I'm using next time I go out.

can you draw a diagram of this setup? :bom:

5 oz. pyramid sinker?
That would ruin the fight...

If jigs aren't working, slow it down more. Your not reeling them in like a buzz bomb. You are casting them out and letting them sink to the bottom, then literally twitching the jig back in and keeping it right off the bottom...Maybe one crank on your reel every 2 seconds. Slow.

The jumpers you see aren't the biters...The biters are in the bottom 1/3 of the water column. So, keep your gear down around the bottom and you will get fish...

Corkies and Pink yarn on a drift fishing setup has been working for me, and small pink dick nites on the same drift fishing setup has been killing em too...

All released though for you guys to catch, I don't eat pinks out of rivers...

Sam,

I wan to try my hand at fishing salmon this year. Are pinks out of the rivers nasty or something?

not to bad in tthe lower rivers.

Here is a picture of the hook setup, sorry the picture isn't that great...


If you picture it on a leader that is about 2-2.5 feet long and a splitter with the weight about 6 inches off the slitter. You put both hooks through the sand shrimp obviously. I would use a slightly larger corky next time, I wasn't getting near as many bites as my friend I went with and I think we just figured his was floating a little better than mine. I agree with Sam, 5 oz. is a little much. I was using it because that's what everyone else was using, but I think its overkill. I was using a trout pole and the fight wasn't much. The last one I reeled in was when I was getting ready to leave and I didn't even know I had a fish on until I had him 2/3 of the way in.

P.S. The pinks don't taste bad at all, just bleed them and clean them as soon as you catch them and put them on ice.

noclothes1 wrote:Sam,

I wan to try my hand at fishing salmon this year. Are pinks out of the rivers nasty or something?

If you get them around the mouth, then your in the clear. I've heard the rule is, if there's sea lice on em then they are ok to take home. I fish far enough up the Snohomish that you can see the different markings that identify a male and female and some of the males have some prominent bumps on their back and completely different jaws...

It's just a catch and release fishery for me. Fun nonetheless

Thank you everyone that had some input on this thread! I am new to salmon fishing period and this year is the first time ever for me. Me and my friends have been catching them on pink jigs as Sam said bouncing them off the bottom a little bit slower.