I know the fish are here. But how to catch them?

[GoingtoFish]

I have been fishing the Snoho and Sky for many, many years. While I have yet to land a silver I have caught numerous pinks in the past. This year the only pinks I caught were out of the salt just north of Edmonds. Didn't get one out of the river. I don't know what I have been doing wrong. I know the silvers are in and there have been a lot around Thomas Eddie but haven't even seen anything follow my offerings and only a few jumpers.
I'm hoping to hit the river again on Sunday and for sure on Monday. Any suggestions? I've tried all the jigs, spoons, spinners, buzz bomb and corky/yarn drift rigs. I haven't tried floating or drifting eggs yet.
Please help!?

[jonb]

The golden rule: keep your offering just off the bottom. If your not within 16" of bottom your not fishing.
Prepare your rod(s) the night before, fresh line on your reel, fix your riggings, oil reel etc. Be prepared to roll up to your hole and immediately start fishing with out delay.
Arrive at your hole 15 minutes before first light.
Start off drifting/floating eggs for the first 2 hours of fishing, the egg bite will usually be red hot before the sun climbs over the tree line.
If you havnt limitted out by this point switch to jigs, spinners and spoons.
Once the sun is out be prepared to move around, whipping 1 hole into a froth isnt going to help you catch fish, go find rested holding water and fish it with spinners then jigs.
If all of this doesnt work there is a major problem with your technique or presentation, my suggestion would then be to pay a fishing guide to help find/correct your problem.
Ive caught 150+ pink salmon and retained 52 of those, caught 28 coho and retained 20 of those, all from the snohomish river, all this year.
Hope this helps, good luck.

[GoingtoFish]

JonB thank you so much for this information. I plan on trying your suggestions out Monday morning. Hopefully the river isn't blown out from all this rain today. But we need it.

[jonb]

If the river is "blown" you have 2 choices, you can either fish VERY low in the system, the sloughs for example on incoming tide. Fresh, chrome bright, fish will be coming in steadily and the incoming tide will slow the current or even reverse the flow if your far enough down which will be easier to fish, or you can go WAY high up the system and fish the mid to upper sky, find protected eddies or pockets to fish. They will stack up like chord wood in high water. Good luck. In my humble opinion the river isnt "blown" until the sky is at 6000 + cfs which I doubt will happen.

[DannyL]

Sky @ Reiter is fishable to 11k. Lots of fish taken in high dirty water.

[jonb]

The sky rose 2 feet so far, all those fish in thomas eddy will be moving up its going to be a great week on the sky.

[snakyjake]

What is the preferred rigging setup for floating eggs from 16" of bottom (I need visuals)?

Any recommendations for eggs that can be purchased retail?

Are you still fishing the bottom with spinners and spoons?

Thanks in advance,
Jake

[BentRod]

What is the preferred rigging setup for floating eggs from 16" of bottom (I need visuals)?

Any recommendations for eggs that can be purchased retail?

Are you still fishing the bottom with spinners and spoons?

Thanks in advance,
Jake

This is similar to what I do, but I use a 3/4 oz float with a 1/2oz inline weight. Mainline 30lb braid with three feet of 12# mono leader to a size 1 hook.

[jonb]

Adjust your float size and sinker size according to what works for your rod. I use a 4-10lb rated float rod, which handles 1/4 and 3/8ths well, so I use the appropreate size float to match. A 1oz float would be cumbersome with my rod. Just a reminder to keep that in mind when choosing which float to use.

The example above is a great example.

[jonb]

I use 8 lb mono. For mainline and leader, mostly because im cheap lol. Braid is better as a mainline, id still use 8-12lb mono as a leader for coho.

[losaturn]

You can easily get away with using heavier line for leader. I've been using 15 & 20lb leaders since the beginning of September, and haven't noticed any decrease in hook ups. Last week though, I did down size to 12lb leaders while float fishing through a pod of rolling fish. Broke off twice on the hook set, but I landed one of those after switching over to heavier leaders.

[jonb]

I only use light leader due to the light line recomendation of my rods, 20lb leader isnt going to be helpful if my mainline is only 12lb or 8lb. If you have a set up that can handle heavy line, by all means use it.. just keep in mind your line recommendation on the rods your using... btw I havnt had a single fish break me off this year using 8lb test.

[Matt]

Another thing to consider when selecting float size is the the desired speed of your presentation. A smaller float with a smaller weight is going to move FASTER through the water. A big float/heavy weight is going to sit heavy and flow more slowly.

[strider43]

The sky rose 2 feet so far, all those fish in thomas eddy will be moving up its going to be a great week on the sky.

there not up here......the Wallace has already dropped like was before the rain. Very few coho in the sky

[strider43]

I have been fishing the Snoho and Sky for many, many years. While I have yet to land a silver I have caught numerous pinks in the past. This year the only pinks I caught were out of the salt just north of Edmonds. Didn't get one out of the river. I don't know what I have been doing wrong. I know the silvers are in and there have been a lot around Thomas Eddie but haven't even seen anything follow my offerings and only a few jumpers.
I'm hoping to hit the river again on Sunday and for sure on Monday. Any suggestions? I've tried all the jigs, spoons, spinners, buzz bomb and corky/yarn drift rigs. I haven't tried floating or drifting eggs yet.
Please help!?

jonb has the fish dialed in at the Snohomish, most everyone I know had a tough pink year. not many fish compared to past few runs. And looks like that may be the case for silvers,(I hope not) as well. Watch for reports and see where the bite is happening and run to that location and fish. diversify, learn the other technique that catch the species you are hunting.

two years ago I had just about the same numbers as the smack talk hole guy just higher in the system. I caught maybe 40 pinks and im at 2 coho.......................

almost all of my coho catches have been with eggs under a float regardless of the time of day.

[Jaust]

I agree with Jonb. I use 12 mono on my mainline and 10 on my leader. I've not broken a line yet. I fish mainly the upper Skagit and Cascade. Caught a 14 lb. silver last week. Biggest one this year. Quite the battle and he put on quite a show. Can't wait to get up there this weekend. Even with the rain the upper Skagit was beautiful.

[BentRod]

Braid is nice for float fishing because it floats and is easy to mend. The lower diameter also makes for easy casting, but it's tendency for tip wrap can negate the positive aspects. To each their own. I switched to 12# mono leader two years ago after having some very hefty and crazy Coho snap my 8 and 10 lb leaders. Since they don't seem to be line shy most of the time with bait then it's worked well for me.

[GoingtoFish]

WOW This blew up with comments since I originally posted it. I haven't had a chance to check until now. Thank you to all for your input. I've been wondering the best way to float eggs on the river and the info will definitely help!
I use 30lb braid as my main line and an 8lb leader (3 to 5ft). I've had good luck with that setup for just about anything I fish for.
I hit the other side of Thomas Eddie on Monday. The water was really high and the tide had just changed and was going out. That made for some really fast muddy water with lots of debris too. Even beach balls. LOL
I threw a few different things out and got one bump but couldn't get it to stick. I tried spinners but the water was so fast it was bringing those right to the surface. I couldn't keep em down. I finally got the one hit on a silver kastmaster. It was heavy enough that I could drift it in the fast water with good action and closer to the bottom.
I didn't have time to try down lower or up higher on the river. I think up further would have been a little clearer and fishy.
I hope to give it another shot next week. I'll probably head up by the Wallace. Need to get some new waders or just deal with the small leaks in the ones I have.
Thanks again for all the info. I'll post something more when I catch one.

[strider43]

I use 8 lb mono. For mainline and leader, mostly because im cheap lol. Braid is better as a mainline, id still use 8-12lb mono as a leader for coho.

I use 10lb main and 8lb leader or 12lb main and 10 lb leader or when float fishing I use mostly Hydrofloat 15 lb and 8 or 10 lb leader. I don't see why anyone would use anything bigger diameter than that in these local rivers, the fish just aren't that big and once you get a feel for what your doing its pretty easy to stay out of the snags unless perhaps your twitching jigs?

[spokey9]

i run 40lb power pro as my mainline on the float rods, i like how it mends. for leaders i run 6 to 10lb mono leaders in most situations or 12 to 15lb flouro when i need to. when i'm fishing eggs for coho and the water has color i'll run 15 or 20lb mono leaders just because they tend to take eggs deep enough that their teeth can fray the leader line.