Hood Canal SRC's

 I had the opportunity to spend my three day weekend back at the parent’s house out in Seabeck, WA. Growing up, we spent a lot of time on the canal casting for silvers, crabbing, shrimping, trolling for sea runs, or chasing whatever else may be in the Hood Canal at the time. As a kid, I took for granted how abundant everything was in the Hood canal. Like everything else, things aren’t as good as they once were, but there is still plenty to go after in the Hood Canal.

 

This weekend brought a minus tide and the opportunity to pluck some oysters and clams, and then wing some flies around for sea run cutthroat. The oysters were plentiful and took no time to  gather our limit of 18 each, but the clams were few and far between. I’ve determined that it is easier to go to the local marina and buy a sack of clams, than it is to spend two hours ripping your hands apart in the gravel chasing clams that you can’t even catch. I am so unflexible that I have to grunt n’ growl to put my socks on in the morning, so getting on my hands and knees to dig for clams does not go over well with my athletic physique. Clearly, there is a secret to chasing clams that I am unaware of. After a shoulder and yoga workout with the clam guns and hands and knees digging, I had two whole clams in my 5 gallon bucket. So I threw the clams guns in the boat and grabbed my rod to try for some sea runs.

It was a calm day, and there were trout surfacing everywhere. Seeing these cutties surface, I tied on a popper but had no luck. I stopped to smash half a turkey sandwich in my face, and then put on a chum fry pattern I had tied a few weeks before. Finally after a couple casts, the chum fry got stuck in the nose of a nice SRC. There were many schools of bait fish popping around. Casting to the outside edges of these schools, we had a few other bops on our flies.  There were also a couple fish hooked on the gear rod using a crocodile.

I have been impatiently waiting for all of our local “S” rivers to open up for the summer when June rolls around so I can go stand in the river in my leaky waders and not catch any steelhead. I am still looking forward to that, but the past few weeks have been spent chasing sea runs at different locations in the Puget Sound. I have learned to really enjoy these fish, I would like to continue to chase them even when the rivers open next weekend. Any time I see a nice rocky beach covered in clear salt water, I will be wishing I had my 5 weight.  Here are some of the patterns I have had success with.

Flat Wing

Miyawaki Poppers

Chum Fry

Tyin’ One On and Smokin' Out This Summer…

With summer river seasons quickly approaching there are a lot of things to get excited about and prepare for. Making sure you have a cooler that will still float when filled with a Busch Light 30 bomb, patching up the flotation devices for the river floats, and saving up all your “sick days” at work for when the flows are right are some of most important. As fly fisherman in the Northwest especially this time of year, many of us by now have a full blown case of cabin fever, so when summer time approaches we start to get excited. I have been thinking about the things that need to be done, where will I fish first? What gear do I need? What flies do I need?

This summer especially has potential to be a great one. Being an odd year, there are some 6 million or so Pink Salmon expected to return to the Puget Sound. Pink salmon do not make for the greatest table fare, but after a few hours in the smoker they taste just as good as the next salmon. So clean up your Big Chief and get ready to put it to use. The season on the Snohomish River has been pushed up to August  1^st so we can all break out our smokers a couple weeks earlier this year.
 

   Pink salmon are hard fighting, and as long you can find a spot to cast without getting slapped by pink buzz bombs from all the meat fisherman, they are fun to fish for. There some patterns outthere are designed for Pink Salmon and Coho Salmon like pink clousers, flash flies, and the HumpyHooker. But they are just variations of each other. All very bright pink flies fished by casting and experimenting with different strips on the retrieve. Or you can swing for them using a medium sink tip.




            There is no set way that you have to fish for pinks, but for me my perfect setup would be a 6 or 7 wt  11’ switch rod, if I was going to make an attempt at swinging (which is a little unconventianal). Or I would use a 9' 7wt single handed rod with a twitchy retrieve. Since pink salmon are quite a bit smaller than other salmon species, you can leave your 14’ two handed 12 wt at home. The Washington State record is 14.86 lbs caught on the Skykomish, so there is no need to go too hard with your gear choices.

              Any day spent wading in a river is better than a day at work, but a day spent wading in swim trunks can be even better, especially catching fish. Pink Salmon are a great way to get started fly fishing for salmon since they come back in such strong numbers and are relatively easy to catch. I plan to spend a lot of weekends filling my smoker. Also here are some links to some tasty sounding brine recipes and some smoking how to's...

How to smoke Salmon

justsmokedsalmon.com

seattletimes.com-huge-puget-sound-pink-salmon-run-of-6-2-million