Evening Salmon bite trolling a Spoon near Structure

Finding the Coho depths in early Summer

Coho aren't typically on the bottom like the bigger Chinook Salmon. In early summer I see these guys Coho school up in shallower water anywhere from 50' to 75' of water. They're aggressive feeders at this point as they are putting on the weight and size in order to spawn in the Fall.

That said, I've often seen them schooling and swimming around the surface. I'm not exactly sure why but I'm assuming they're following baitfish up shallow, but I've had them hit my spoon sitting on top water a few times this season already as I'm preparing to drop it down! These shallow schools can be a lot of fun to vertically jig a buzz bomb, Lil Nib' or some some of weighted jigging lure.

Trolling around structure

I set my downrigger to 67' feet and l like to find structure and troll in and around it. Often times I'll troll beside reefs or places you'd typically find bottom fish or places where baitfish can hide in. When tide goes slack the these bait fish will leave their hiding places and rise up in the water column or move around the structure. So finding those types of spots is key!

Weather and Tide Conditions

The wind started off around 8 knots when I first got out on the water in the early afternoon. It was a full moon phase, now I'm no expert on this stuff but take it as you may. I had the day off work, so was out there around 3:00 pm. So I was starting to fish a rising tide. There was an high slack tide around 8:30pm so I figured that would be the best fishing time. Little did I know it was hot right right away, From 3 to 5 it was non stop after I found the schools of salmon beside structure. 

Trip Details

I had a general idea of an area that had good structure and it was near an island which I like to circle around to find fish as well. Once I got to the structure and I saw plenty of school on my Garmin Striker, I ended up fishing this area for most of my session. There were too mounds of structure, the water depth was around 160' the structures cam up to roughly 60-75', so I fished over them, I fished around them and I fished between them. I got most of my bites when fishing between them. I was dropping my cannon ball anywhere from 50' to 70' when going between the structures and the action was fast and furious! The only thing that delayed a bite was seaweed or jellyfish getting into my setup.

I can't remember how many wild coho I got, but did manage to get my 2 hatchery coho which was fantastic! It really takes the pressure off! I got a handful of "feeder chinooks" as well, which are immature Chinooks that won't spawn this year and are aggressive resident salmon beefing up for the Fall. If this fish do enter the river, we often call them "Jacks", immature salmon that have come to compete with the adults to spawn.

One other wild surprise was the massive adult Chinook I got. He hit my spoon in 55' I believe and the fight was great! He ended up wrapping around my downrigger line 3 times at the end of the fight. I have no idea how I was able to catch this fish! He gave me an opportunity to net him so I was lucky! He bent the crap out of my hook so that spoon was done for the day. You can see this catch and bent spoon in the video... insane!

it was a great evening of salmon fishing, I also bonked a decent Copper Rockfish for fish tacos while I was vertical jigging and loosing a lot of salmon. Hahaha! My lesson learned here, was once I hook the salmon, loosen your drag!

Anyway, it was a great kick off to the salmon season! The reports were true! And it looks like it's going to be a banger summer of salmon fishing in my local waters.