I’ve been having some boat trouble lately, but fortunately a couple of friends helped me get out fishing recently.
The first trip out was on the upper Snohomish from a boat. We fished my friend’s favorite spot and got some fish there, including a couple of coho. Drift fishing dick nite spoons was the ticket, driving those fish nuts.
A bit later we changed spots to around the confluence of the Snoqualmie and Skykomish. This area was fairly packed with pinks, and we landed several. All methods worked, including dick nites and jigging.
We threw most of the fish back, as they were rather colored up. But as we kept at it we found a few we didn’t mind taking home to the smoker.
A different friend has a key to Douglas Bar, roughly in the middle of the Snohomish. Down there it is mostly a plunking show. People were getting fish plunking spoons and shrimp.
It was nice to fish for a while in this “lazy” way, rather than tiring my arm out twitching jigs. It seemed like just about everyone there was having a fairly easy time of catching fish, although you could tell who the regulars were as they quickly limited out or C&R many fish.
As an added treat if you kept your eye on the spot where the gravel bar dropped off into deeper water you could see pods of fish swimming by. I probably saw at least a hundred swim through.
For more information on fishing for pink salmon, and access areas please check out the pink salmon page.