This report is the second day of a 2-day fish-a-polusa. It is also the second day of 2 days off in a row, a rare event this summer. Due to a unfavorable wind forecast the trip was squishy but either way we were meeting at Cornet launch for a final decision. My good friend Alan and his son Bruce were joining me and I wanted to get them on some fish! As always up before the alarm I had things ready to roll and pulled out of the driveway at 4:00 sharp. After a quick stop at Holiday for nonethanol and a fresh made breakfast burrito I was on my way to Cornet bay.

On arrival I found the bay glassy calm with no wind and was in the water in no time. We had agreed to meet at 5:30 so while waiting I visited with my dock mate and readied the boat and gear for our adventure. 5:30 sharp a set of headlights signals my guests arrival and we were on the way shortly thereafter. We were handed a gift; the water was dead calm as we motored our way through the predawn darkness. Our plan was to fish for coho at Eagle Point along the south side of San Juan Island.

Although I had three downriggers onboard, I decided to fish only 2 and really focus on a precision presentation. Everybody agreed and we would be rotating through hookups. It turned out to be a solid decision because we were on fire. Every hookup turned out to be a double so we had two fighting fish and one netting fish (2 nets onboard) as we cycled through our rotation. In the end we lost about 10 or 12 fish but still got easy limits of 8#-mid teens coho.

As pictured, we were running 11” flashers and UV trolling flies. There were huge schools of small bait so we sized our flies accordingly. I was running 36” leaders with a 20’ setback from the clip. All our fish were caught with between 60 and 140’ of cable out while trolling at 3.2-4.0 mph. the files we were using were 2 hook rigs and I tipped the lead hook with salted herring strips.

It was a stellar day day of coho fishing and other than boys with sore arms Alan and his son had an absolute blast. It was one of the best coho days I have ever experienced. Good fellowship, fishing and weather made for an awesome day.

---