I found myself with rod in hand, being coached by experts “Pump up, reel down, pump up, reel down.” Now, I had landed many a fine pan-sized trout in the ponderosa forests of northern Arizona and even a few decent bass in the desert lakes, but nothing had prepared me for an angry, mature Chinook salmon. Nothing, with a capital “N”.
The next few minutes had my mind reeling, please excuse the unintentional-pun again, and the cooling cocoa running down the inside of my pants went un-noticed. After a few more “just hold the rod up an let ‘em run” runs, and even more wicked “pump up, reel down”s, I opened my stress-clenched eyes to see a fine bright specimen in the 25-pound class that had magically appeared inside a net on the deck of the boat. Of course, as an eleven-year-old, it was easily double that size, and triple by the time I returned home to Arizona two months later. Yep, they grow real fast during those summer months.
Well, that was the end of the innocence. That night, with a flashlight under the covers, I read outdoor magazines until I didn’t need the flashlight any more because it was dawn. Then, stretching and yawning like a well-slept boy I arrived at the chow table. “What would you like for breakfast, Tattoo?” my Aunt asked. “Do you know the difference between the clinch knot and the ‘improved’ clinch knot?” was my response. She just pivoted and stared at me.A few hours later my apprenticeship began. My Aunt, who was really the ringleader of fishing in my family, sat me down and graciously ladled out information most locals had to buy on the black market. This continued daily until our next excursion upon the saltwater a week later. We slayed ‘em. It was the peak of the run and we used barbless hooks before barbless hooks were required just so we could shake fish faster and get back to fishing. This went on for a couple of more weeks and I thought that this was just how fishing was. Why would anyone NOT like salmon fishing? Was the world just stupid? I couldn’t fathom that some kid would take Saturday morning cartoons over this. The second weekend of August my bubble burst. We fished 5 five hours for two shakers. I was convinced that my roadside Blackberry vending business had cursed me with scent and I soaked my hands in herring juice for two hours that afternoon. I had spent the previous week gathering and selling berries for money to buy fishing magazines. I burned the “Blackberries for Sale” sign that was born from a piece of the old barn and painted with seven colors of leftover house paint.It wasn’t until after I had gone to these radical extremes that my Aunt informed me that I had completed “Basic Training” and now knew “How” to catch salmon, and was ready to enroll in the under-grad courses of “When & Where” to catch salmon. In order to do so, I would have exactly nine months to study abroad (Arizona) and a three-month practical exam the following summer. Unfortunately, this isn’t something that can be fully grasped in the course of a school year, especially when you’re being pounded by other teachers to learn silly things like English and Math. I have almost 35-years of training and am still no PhD. All waters and ecosystems have their own traits, trends, and circumstances, each of which is variable. For learning, it’s best to concentrate on your own little piece of the world to truly understand the complexities but there are some universal truths as well.

While there are five species of Pacific salmon to contend with, there are some generalities that speak for most species. It’s been discovered that most salmon migrate in a rapid and directed movement, at least in the open ocean to coastal waters portion of their trip. Some species, once they arrive in coastal waters, may tend to “wander” near their tributaries waiting for a cue to move upstream but the initial migration from the ocean is normally swift and direct.
Variances in ocean temperatures account for some of the “sway” in run timing. Because it is believed that salmon begin the initial phase of their migration (i.e. ocean to coastal) almost on cue each year, the location of where they start their trip is important. It has been shown that after a colder winter, salmon are further south in latitude than in a warmer winter. This helps us understand a later arrival to northern streams and an earlier arrival to watersheds further south.
Once salmon reach coastal waters near their estuary destination, they often move in unpredictable, erratic patterns. This is what makes fishing for them a challenge at times as we have all seen a hotspot turn frigid on a moment’s notice for no apparent reason. While there are “traditional” hotspots in many marine locations around the state, they are by no means written in stone in terms of timing.