Fishing Forum

Was up in Washington for about a week visiting my sister and bro in law. We fished Puget Sound on friday with no luck, then headed back out on Saturday. On Saturday we headed to a few areas but didn't find any baitfish so we headed back to a point where we located some the day before. We again marked baitfish and trolled through the area with riggers around 105 feet deep with salmon rigs. On one pass the pole was acting a little funny so we reeled it in and had a resident blackmouth that went just over 22 inches so we decided to keep it for some fine table fare. Then a little later on we made another pass through by the point and one of the rods popped off the rigger and my bro in law yelled to kill the engine cuz he thought we were hung up on the bottom. Well I killed the engine and brought up the other down rigger. Then he said he thought a fish might be on and handed me the pole...It was weird cuz it felt like dead weight for a little while but then after reeling for a few seconds bam bam...there was a fish on! He made several line stripping runs and I kept worrying about the drag being too tight since I was not used to heavier salmon rigs. On the first pass my bro in law put a net under him and lo and behold a nice big wild spring chinook! We didn't weight him before cleaning but my bro in law estimated it at somewhere over 15 pounds. He said we got fairly lucky to have gotten such a nice fish since the spring run in the sound is not known to produce a lot of salmon. We vacum sealed the fillet chunks and I headed back to Utah with a lot of frozen salmon. It was my first time catching salmon and I am definately hooked!! Here are the two fish...





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http://i162.photobucket.com/albums/t259/...ple022.jpg
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That brings back fond memories of fishing the Puget Sound when I was just a "pup". Those salmon can put up a fight once you get them up into about 20-30 feet, but like you said they seem like a snag or dead weight when they are that far down. I remember when I was 5 years old I won a junior salmon fishing tournament there on the sound. I caught a 14 lb. (I believe it was either a king or steel head) salmon. The only help I had was from my dad and all he did was hold me by my belt loops on my jeans so the fish wouldnt drag me in!!! Glad to hear you had a good time!!!
TS
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Nice looking fish. I bet they had the best tasting pink meat......Im hungry now......
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WOW beatuiful fish. What time is dinner and I wil bring the beer/wine
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