I would love to see some fly patterns the will/have caught Pinks in the past. I have gone on line and found a few but would enjoy seeing what some of you guy/gals have that have been working in the past runs. This will be my first year fishing for the Pinks. I got a few Silvers last year got skunked on the Chum though.
Wouldn't it be ironic if we had to lose this salmon run to the State Legislature's inability to compromise on a budget by July 1st? Millions of fish, quietly swimming along, undisturbed, unhindered . . .
Steve S...." I'll be on the beach in front of my house about July 25th on. You are all welcome to join me. The fishing is great." I might like to do that. I'm fishbum@seanet.com. Bob
For those that are currently tying their supply of pink flies something to keep in mind is that the larger the average size the more aggressive they are. Over the years I have seen the average range from less than 2#s to as much as 6# (with individuals ranging from a pound or so to as much as 12#s). When the fish are on the small size you may find that scaling your presentation down will yield better results. It often is the case that in large runs the average size is down. If that is true for 2013 then this may be a year for smaller stuff. It never hurts to have some smaller stuff in your arsenal as pressured fish can sometimes become a little finicky. When that happens slowing down even more with some smaller stuff will often pay off in spades. I often fish stuff that is about 1/2 the size the many are using. The role of the smaller stuff seems to increase as they fish moving inside. Of course on the flip side using larger presentation will tend to select for the larger/more aggressive fish. It never hurts to be prepared for a variety of situations. If nothing else having a variety of flies and sizes will give the angler something to do (changing flies) while waiting for the next pod of fish or during other lulls in action. Curt
+1 this was much more important on the 2009 run than 2011 from my experience. At times in 2009, I was down to size 10 and 12 to get nibs.
One tactic I found when fishing on the west side of Whidbey from a boat, anchored in about 15' of water: A school Comes up on you - cast to them and just let the fly sink sink sink all the way down to the bottom if you can. I would have 3 fish following all the way down and then one grabs it just before it hits bottom. Fish on!
Speaking of flies - somebody on this board built/shared a fly that was on the mid-small side of the spectrum, that was basically a pearl flashabou tail with a tapered flashabou body wound up to a hot-pink conehead, and finished with a hard coat over the tapered body. IIRC the story was that the fly had a super fast jigging action when fished off of a longish leader and a floating line, and the combination of the build and the rapid-jigging actions seemed to trigger strikes when the sparse pink wooly-buggeresque flies just weren't working. Sounded reasonable to me at the time, so I tied up my own version of the fly and it seemed to deliver, particularly when the fish were staging and subject to significant pressure from gear fishermen. I'll try to post a photo of the pattern if I still have some in my box from the 2011 run, but maybe the guy who originally posted the fly in 2011 will chime in and save me the trouble...
it might have been evan, as i remember tying a pattern based on the heavy bead to get that action on a floating line. mine was just a short marabou tail with a dubbed body up to a tungsten cone. worked exceptionally well with a floating line on the lower duwamish.
OK so you guys are saying heavy jigging action for the pinks? Leland was telling me that very lightly weighted flies stripped slow were the ticket. I had moderate success last time around with pink clousers on a clear intermediate, and buzz bombed a few on the windy days as well. Seems like the jigging action just pisses em off, the slow strip actually stimulates the feeding instinct?
So when should they first start to appear off the south end of whidbey? My trip up there is early this year and I am hoping I can target some of these...
Doublebluff. I think you will see decent numbers of fish in late July. Porterhouse- certainly Leland has landed more salmon than I will ever dream of. I was just describing something I have observed the last couple seasons while fishing for Pinks. This was from a boat. From the beach I mix up my retrieve more, part out of strategy and part from my tendency to figit. I also think fishing as far up as Lagoon Pt helps. Some years the fish have stopped feeding by the time they hit shipwreck.
Most of the time with pinks I think if you can see 'em you can catch 'em (at least that's been my experience), and I caught ~90% of my fish using the same approach that you describe above. Could have been nothing more than voodoo, but when the go-to pattern wasn't working (pink comet with light dumbell eyes) the sparse-and-jiggy fly on a floater seemed to get the job done. The only time I had to deviate from the norm and tie on the sparse-and-jiggy thingy was when I was casting to fish that were schooled up and staging, and there was a fair amount of boat traffic in the area. The real lesson is probably to change up your approach if you can see fish and you aren't getting strikes, but I'm going to keep pretending that I've got a magic fly to break the skunk with.
