Northwest Fishing Reports

What is your goto lure for catching pinks from the beach and what do you think tide wise is the best to fish?

An hour before and after tide change is probably best. Thats just my observation from 2 years ago. But you can probably catch them throughout the day. Sometimes they just comes in waves when people up and down the beach are fighting pinks at the same time. If your eating lunch when this happens, get back in the water and cast right away.

The usual lure is a pink buzz bomb. 2 inch to 2.5 inch is suitable. Any bigger and the buzz bomb will sink to fast and you will snag it into something. Plus when your casting for hours, your arm will thank you for casting a 2 incher over a 3 incher any day.

Yup i use 3 inch or 2 ince buzzbombs and pink jigs 3/8 is fine because jigs dont have to much weight ive had luck with both just use about 10 to 15 pond line and you can cast far.Just twitch the buzzbomb and jig back to your self and hopefully you'll get one and some tips for river pinks pink corky and yarn is the best combo with like 1/2 or more lead they'll bite anything pink just pinch the barbs.Good luck

I heard this run is 3-4 million fewer then 09! Is this true? I heard 5 million pinks in 09 other people saying it was at 9.68 and this year just under 6 million!

Where are all the pinks? The numbers seem to be way low for this time of year or they are just not here yet. I went down to the Spokane St bridge and didn't see any fish which I usually will see thousands! Is it the lack of rain or the netting in Canada? My spot is usually Lincoln Park but it has being hit or miss. Seems that low tide is where the bite is and high is just horrible. I may go down to Dash and try again???

Thoughs?

As far as I know Canadian netting does not target pinks (net mesh size) so would not account for much with little bycatch.

A couple things I'd say- one we have had a cool summer and rivers running high. This MIGHT have some kind of effect on pushing the run a bit later (Columbia springers and Steel might be worth looking at for example as running a wee bit later although I didn't fish for either so not a good source on that). Might also have the fish moving thru quick when getting close to and into rivers with the river water levels high. Another point, geez it is only mid August so it is real early for rivers and not at all late for the salt (maybe just reaching 1/2 way point in the salt?).
Guess another point Spokey mentioned at least for Dash Pt is these fish get bombed hard for a long distance so the 'bite' may turn off by mid day when morning fishing pressure has startled some fish and before the crowds thin out to possibly pick things back up later.

If it is this way in another week I'll be wondering as well. Forecasting fish runs as we all know is not always a precise and accurate science.

Good luck out there.

It's been a weird year. Even the dogfish were late showing up. Food production, water temps, snow melt and other stuff. It's barely even summer, and the fish know it. They're hanging back in the straits waiting until washington decides to get it's act together and be summer. But by fall when you're chasing coho, you'll be cursing the humpies. Hahahaha. they'll come all at once in a rush. You'll see.

Yup nates right but the pinks are still coming even 6 million fish is alot and we still got 2013 lol

I launched at Everett yesterday at 5:30 and tried Possession for Nooks until 2:00. I couldnt find any. There are a lot of guys fishing the shipwreck for Pinks. Speaking of nets, the Native Americans had a purse seine out at 6AM about half mile south of Mulkiteo and they were still at it when I came back.

Today there were 5 purse seiners and a fish buyer boat just north of the ferry lane at Mukilteo. I watched several net sets and they were getting some fish, not a lot, but some. Few fish in the nets mean higher prices paid per pound. If they plug the nets with pinks the per pound price paid will plummet. I hate to see the nets out there but with the commercial control of the states fisheries, it is what it is.

wolverine wrote: Today there were 5 purse seiners and a fish buyer boat just north of the ferry lane at Mukilteo. I watched several net sets and they were getting some fish, not a lot, but some. Few fish in the nets mean higher prices paid per pound. If they plug the nets with pinks the per pound price paid will plummet. I hate to see the nets out there but with the commercial control of the states fisheries, it is what it is.

Bummer. Those netters have all but wiped out the Snohomish Chum run from purse seining out there..... Wouldn't be surprised if they started having measurable impacts on the Snoh pink run...

FYI

The purse seiners are hitting the Pinks hard, just north of Mulkiteo. There were 8 there when we went out from the Everett launch around 6 this morning and all 8 were still there when we came back around 2. Watched them for awhile and they were loading up the nets big time. Pinks going up the Sno may be thin for awhile until the purse seiners move elsewhere. I assume they will move to some other terminal area at some point.

Ditto the Sky/Sno chum run. It used to be great 5-6 years ago but not much the last few years since prices went up and the netting got heavy. I remember one time, the commercials were giving Chums away in grocery store parking lots to try and stimulate some interest in the fish. They were getting like 10 cents a pound back then. Last year it was like a buck or so.

BARCHASER wrote:
Ditto the Sky/Sno chum run. It used to be great 5-6 years ago but not much the last few years since prices went up and the netting got heavy. I remember one time, the commercials were giving Chums away in grocery store parking lots to try and stimulate some interest in the fish. They were getting like 10 cents a pound back then. Last year it was like a buck or so.

The money comes in from overseas... Eastern Asia specifically, the big thing is the eggs from the females. It's a bummer because they only want the females for the eggs so all the males die as bycatch... It's a crappy deal and I wonder when the WDFW will wise up to realize how much the tribal and commercial fisherman can ruin salmon runs. Sport fisherman have much less of an impact on wiping out runs, can fish selectively, and have a bigger economic impact than commercial fishing contrary to popular belief....

Which is why I think all fish sold in stores SHOULD BE FARM RAISED. Stop the harvest of wild fish. Beef or poultry is all farm raised, and everyone is fine with it.

I watched the seiners for about 3 hours today after getting back from fishing. It looked like there were a mix of cowboy and tribal seiners out today and it appeared that they were making money today. A lot of the sets had a lot of fish in them. I don't know what they are getting per pound but I know that the Alaskan seiners were getting $.41/pound for their pinks. The Snohomish systems pink resource definitely took a beating today.