Bay wolf
11/21/2022 11:03:52 AMChum are good biters, and are easy to catch. Find yourself a nice drift and use a bobber and jig. Tip the jig with a piece of store bought shrimp about the size of nickel. The night before, cut you shrimp into chunks and put a little sugar on them and mix it up. The color of the jig is usually not as important, but pinks, chartreuse, black and purple all seem to work fine. At times, the chum will prefer one color over another so if it's slow, change colors.
Drift you're jig just off the bottom about six inches. Once you find where the fish are in the drift, just repeat the same thing and you'll stay on them.
Please remember, chum are a great sport, and we are lucky to have them in pretty good numbers still. So if you catch and release them, please do so with care and respect. Too often I see guys dragging them up on shore, and kicking them back in the water.
Drift you're jig just off the bottom about six inches. Once you find where the fish are in the drift, just repeat the same thing and you'll stay on them.
Please remember, chum are a great sport, and we are lucky to have them in pretty good numbers still. So if you catch and release them, please do so with care and respect. Too often I see guys dragging them up on shore, and kicking them back in the water.
Speedbird 48
11/25/2022 9:57:50 PMI used a pink and purple jig I tied myself, it’s possible I set the wrong depth on my jig, or was just lazy with colors. I am 100% with you on fish handling and love to see others preach it. I try not to use bait as it results in deeper hooked fish. I had great luck fishing that exact same combo on another river with a much more robust Chum run this Thanksgiving. First fish was caught on a shrimp, but the rest were all picked up with just the jig. It’s possible that it was only so easy because of the sheer numbers
mazze1124
11/21/2022 2:19:36 PMSpeedbird you do know Chum/dog's are closed on the Skagit?
Speedbird 48
11/25/2022 9:54:05 PMTotally, I was targeting Coho and had I hooked into a Chum I would have released and handled it with the utmost care. You could argue that it was unethical for me to fish a run with Chum, but as I understand the regulations specifically forbid the retention of Chum, not targeting. If I am mistaken, please correct me.
Speedbird 48
11/25/2022 10:13:30 PMThat being said even if I am correct and CNR salmon besides Coho is legal, most anglers fish with the goal of keeping fish, and I realize that this report probably could give the wrong impression, and that it was not wise to mention the Chum. I keep my river reports to a minimum, but in the future I will be sure to not mention the presence of salmon species not legal to keep to avoid giving ideas to poachers
klkerr24
11/22/2022 7:31:51 AMthanks for the report, hard to get ant intel on the skagit sometimes. Im new to fishing that area just got a drift boat so curious what section you fished? were you in a boat or off the bank, did you see any coho or just a chum show? and intel is appreciated ill be doing marblemount to rockport this weekend
thanks!
thanks!
Speedbird 48
11/25/2022 10:05:07 PMIt was a Chum show but supposedly Coho trickle into that system until the end of December. I was wading