Leland
Good report and very informative. Could you share with us what color Popper
seemed to work best.
Thanks
Dan
----- Original Message -----
From: "Leland Miyawaki" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "Waflyfishers" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Sunday, August 26, 2001 9:21 AM
Subject: Sekiu Report, 8/25
> Coho With An Attitude
>
> Fellow listmember, Brian Lencho, and I fished the outgoing tide
> yesterday at Sekiu from 7 am to 12 noon in a rented boat from Van
> Riper's ($86). Occasionally, the morning sun would peek out from
> behind the high clouds, but for the most part, it was overcast and
> the water was dead calm. We began our search for coho by trolling.
> Brian fished a traditional bucktail and I switched back and forth
> between various streamer concoctions and poppers. We motored back and
> forth over most of the water in Clallam Bay, concentrating our search
> along the kelp beds.
>
> We trolled for an hour and a half without a strike. Next to the bell
> buoy at the rocks near Slip Point, Brian hooked his first fish, a
> five pound wild coho. We narrowed our search and began circling the
> area looking for feeding schools. On our third pass off Slip Point,
> we made a tight turn and Brian hooked up again on his bucktail. The
> change in speed and direction also brought a huge boil to my popper.
> The game was on.
>
> Schools of three to four inch herring were swimming under our boat.
> Gulls were diving into the water inside the kelp beds and just enough
> salmon were crashing into the herring to let us know they were
> around. And we were the only boat there.
>
> For the next three hours, we drifted along the outside edge of the
> kelp beds just off the beach. We cast poppers into the holes in the
> kelp and stripped them back to the boat. I don't think we made more
> than a dozen casts that didn't elicit a strike or follow. We lost
> count, but figure we each had at least 30 fish up to the boat. We
> weren't netting them. We simply reached down over the boat and and
> slipped out the barbless hooks. We took photographs of the first few
> salmon but soon became too busy to shoot. We were in a zone, you
> might say. There were a few shakers but most were wild coho between
> four and five pounds with a few that were over. Toss in a couple
> good-sized blackmouth, and we had the makings of a good day.
>
> What made the fishing so fun was the popper on the surface. We would
> make a long cast to the edge of the kelp bed. As soon the popper hit
> the water, we began stripping with short strips and pauses. Within
> the first couple strips, we could see a salmon wake behind the fly
> and that's when the fun began. We provoked strikes by manipulating
> our poppers. Brian said it was like teasing a cat with a string. We
> sped up like a frightened baitfish and the salmon would slam the fly
> from behind. We stopped dead and the salmon would turn away, then
> when we twitched the popper, the salmon would turn back and take the
> fly from the side with a huge boil. We changed directions with quick
> mends and the salmon crashed the fly. When we stripped our poppers up
> to the boat, we could see the salmon behind the fly. If we raised the
> rod and pulled the fly alongside the boat and stopped, the salmon
> would take it at our feet. All our moves brought violent strikes.
> These coho had a bad attitude and wanted to annihilate our flies!
>
> Around noon, the action slowed, so we headed back to the docks to get
> something to eat. On the way, we decided that since Brian needed to
> get home that night, we might as well call it a day and leave after a
> gourmet lunch of hot roast beef sandwiches with instant mashed
> potatoes, powdered gravy mix and canned peas at the Breakwater. How
> else could we top the morning we just had?
>
