The old saying one door closing can mean another one opening certainly rang true for a group of Northwest Fishing Reports anglers this weekend.

Our group had a trip/video planned to fish tuna with Pat Schenk of Sea Breeze Charters. Unfortunately, after two weeks of calm, sunny weather, Mother Nature decided to send a front our way. Saturday evening we got a call from Capt. Pat letting us know the weather was too iffy for tuna, and instead we would be going salmon fishing. There was disappointment in our group for sure as we had been excited about tuna fishing, however, a chance to catch feisty chinook and coho in the ocean is never a bad backup plan!

We arrived Sunday morning at Sea Breeze Charters and went through our boat safety instructions from Capt. Pat and the crew, and headed out to fish about 3-4 miles offshore of Long Beach. The run was a little lumpy and bumpy from the still persistent winds, but it wasn’t too bad. Our group of NWFR anglers numbered seven, and we had one guest angler added on. Soon our deckheads had the gear out and running. The method of fishing today was trolling a whole herring off divers, with depths varying from 8 to 25 feet over around 60-85 feet deep water. Simple fishing for sure, but super deadly and effective.

Within minutes the call of “Hook-Up!” could be heard around the boat. I really liked hearing that call, and got to heard it a lot on this day.

Anglers took turns grabbing the poles, and fish began getting their gills punched to keep track of whose fish was whose. The ocean is fishing exceptional well according to Pat. A few weeks ago there were more kings, now it’s more like 80-90% coho, which held true for us today. Of the coho, the wild ones have to be released. But there were plenty of fish to get to the boat limits, which we did by 10:45am. 12 shiny coho and 4 solid chinook for the party. The chinook included three cookie-cutters in the 20 pound class. I’ll take those any day, and in fact was lucky enough to grab one of the rods that had a 20 pound chinook on it.

We had an easy bar crossing and back to the dock before noon. A big “Thank you” to Capt. Pat and the crew of the Four Sea'Sons. Capt. Pat has third generation family running his boats now, so you know they know the waters and techniques. They have eight boats in their fleet. If you’d like to get in on some of this amazing near-shore ocean salmon fishing give Sea Breeze Charters a call at (360) 642-2300 or (800) 204-9125. The web site is Sea Breeze Charters. The nice thing about these charters is they can accommodate single anglers since they are party boats. No need to book a whole boat for your group yourselves. Also, it is the ocean and safety is always the most important thing to consider. I saw an open guide boat fishing the area. That seemed really risky, especially crossing the bar if things got rough. Pat mentioned last year one of these river sleds got swamped and had a client drown. Keep safe and be on a boat made for the ocean.

---