Looks like seal flipper claw marks to me.
SF
SF
Puget Sound
- Thread starter Stonedfish
- Start date
Bambooflyguy
Life of the Party
Looks like it fought with an Atlantic salmon......somebody had to say it!
You win! Those Atlantic salmon got some teeth! Haha.
I think Matt, Shad and SF are probably on the right track. Seal or otter scratching both ways sounds the most likely. Crazy that it got away if that's the case.
Just finishing up a trip on Whidbey Island, where I was able to to try salmon fishing for the first time. No specific species in mind, but “expecting” pinks since that was what everyone around us was catching. But we got absolutely skunked! We’re a group of 3 and combined had 15+ hours of fly fishing in, and not a single salmon, not even a bite… We tried everything we could think of, and tried to implement everything we could read about! We were hitting all the popular beaches… Lagoon Point North, Bush Point, the state park, Driftwood park by the ferry. Our only thought is we just couldn’t get a fly out far enough? Or maybe we were just out competed with the hoards of buzz bombs. Or maybe there’s better beaches suited to fly fishing where the fish come in closer. Bottom line is we were out fished by grannies in lawn chairs next to us, haha.
Anyone want to take some pity on some noob PNW salmon beach fly fishers and give some helpful tips?
Anyone want to take some pity on some noob PNW salmon beach fly fishers and give some helpful tips?
Internet went out today around 10 am. Only had a couple of meetings I could call into from my phone so decided to call it an half day. With time to spare, hit the water for a few hours. 2-3 with a couple of adult rezzie sized coho landed + a random src. Lost another fish which was a bit bigger. Also missed a few taps.
They bite better at dawn. I like to go then. This is the rule unless it isn’t.
The Silver City malt was pretty tasty! I'm not a big hops fan, and this was more like maybe a Spaten Dark than a typical PNW beer. A little sweet.
After catching a slight buzz halfway into the can, I did take a second look at the ABV: 7.5% !
Tonight's libation is a tad lighter
No problem netting - I have a larger, lightweight, long handled net I use in the yak. Might have gotten ugly without that!
DimeBrite
Saltwater fly fisherman
Look at the tide and current charts. Are you fishing those places at optimal points in the tide where salmon are pushed into the beach within casting range? Did you tie up quality flies for pink and coho salmon? Did you arrive at low light when salmon bite best? Are you stripping your flies in a way that attracts strikes?
Slower fishing today, but the weather was lovely for kayaking. One rezzie to the net this morning, and it somehow managed to break the hook off my hot fly (a pretty standard, sparse, stinger clouser in pink/chartreuse.) No more fish landed for me until this evening. I used 15lb fluoro to tie a new hook onto the shank, and got the biggest one of the trip so far - a maybe 4lber that hit so hard it yanked the line from my fingers
Plus I got a double rainbow, without the rain
Plus I got a double rainbow, without the rain
Here’s one I tied up beforehand, but we had many others in the pink and white clouser category. Also tried chartreuse variations of most everything. We tried +/- 1 hour of high and low tides. We were out into the night a couple times and one of was on the water at 6 this morning. Big/small/fast/slow strips, rod under the arm and retrieving fast. Tried to cover all the bases for retrieves. I’d say we were able to get 40 -70 feet out there?
Attachments
VMP
Steelhead
The striation and grid pattern looks way too regular for a biological/failed predation event. It is reminiscent of marks from knotted nets, mesh size too small for a commercial gillnet, too symmetric pattern for a tangled gillnet and injury location is wrong for a gillnet escapee (they tend to have abrasions between head and dorsal fin). Purse-seined fish that get pushed in place against the net during hauling can get marks like that, but mesh size looks too small. My best guess is fish got scooped up by a dry knotted landing net from another recreational angler and either released, or just jumped out of the net (second set of striations around adipose to tail).
Either that, or it jumped out of a deep fry basket from the kitchen of one of the gazillion passing cruise ships.
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The head is buggier than I’d fish personally but I doubt that’s a dealbreaker. I also tend to fish flies closer to 3” but I know others who do well on shorter so that’s probably not a dealbreaker.
If I was only getting 40’ out I wouldn’t feel very confident of my odds although fish definitely come in that close. 70’ is getting closer to confidence territory, 80+ is great.
1 hour before dawn through maybe 45 minutes after dawn is the sweet spot. Evening is less good. Except as alluded to above when it’s Opposite Day.
So my personal “get a fish” program for you would be to pick a day with good tide movement in that -1 hr to +1 hr around dawn and cast your best casts into juicy looking rips at the tip of your range. Using a slightly longer and less buggy headed fly.
Man, it sounds like you covered all the bases.
Flies look right and you are casting far enough out to catch fish. Hard to imagine three folks didn’t get a bite, but I’ve had trips like that myself.
Keep at it and you’ll hook up some fish.
SF
I think so too. My wild theory is that it was netted, put on the deck of the boat and someone really pinned down hard on it. That would explain the patch of loss scales and net imprint due to the pressure. That someone then picked it up where it managed to flop free and now into your lap
What kind of line were you using? Maybe it wasn't getting down deep enough.
That was my first question too… if you were using a floating line and only getting it out 50 feet you may not have been getting your fly into the fishy zone.
It sounds like the fish were there if the gear folks were getting into them. But the buzz bombers will always be able to cast farther out so maybe you just weren’t reaching them, or getting down deep enough.
I tried a full sinking line, and got a few small cabezon, which I think are on the bottom? Also had a floating line with weighted flies/ unweighted flies with split shot. We leaned towards trying to target 0-2’, based on intel from locals on the beach. Others were trying intermediate lines and sink tips as well
Very likely just a run of bad luck. Sounds like you were doing everything right. Actually kinda baffles me that you didn't get a sniff, as it's kinda hard to avoid them right now.
Personally I like flies in the 1-2" range if I'm targeting them, sparse and simple. That said I've caught a ton of them on 5" clousers when trying to avoid them so it all works.
Distance off the beach is always nice to have but if you're getting 40-70' then I can guarantee that isn't the reason you didn't catch them. I fished near several of the beaches you mentioned above just yesterday and saw more fish than I could count within 50' of shore. Hell, there's many days out in the boat when I'm envious of the beach guys in certain areas when those rips are set up right off the beach. A few weeks ago I was watching buzz bombers huck their jigs 200' out into the depths while the single fly guy was hooking fish after fish casting 40' into the rip right in front of them.
I'd say chalk it up to just a terrible run of luck. Go back out tomorrow and do what you have been doing and you'll likely rope a bunch of em.
Personally I like flies in the 1-2" range if I'm targeting them, sparse and simple. That said I've caught a ton of them on 5" clousers when trying to avoid them so it all works.
Distance off the beach is always nice to have but if you're getting 40-70' then I can guarantee that isn't the reason you didn't catch them. I fished near several of the beaches you mentioned above just yesterday and saw more fish than I could count within 50' of shore. Hell, there's many days out in the boat when I'm envious of the beach guys in certain areas when those rips are set up right off the beach. A few weeks ago I was watching buzz bombers huck their jigs 200' out into the depths while the single fly guy was hooking fish after fish casting 40' into the rip right in front of them.
I'd say chalk it up to just a terrible run of luck. Go back out tomorrow and do what you have been doing and you'll likely rope a bunch of em.
One thing @ffb and I both noticed yesterday is that out of most schools that were coming thru there was a few "biters" and the rest couldn't give two shits about our flies. Huge schools would be steady streaming under the boat, maybe 15' under us. You could let a fly sink down and they would all just ignore it. But you could cast a fly over the top of them and as soon as it hit the water you could see the few aggressive ones instantly swim up and start chasing the fly while all the others just beelined south.
Makes me wonder if that happens a lot off the beach as well. School comes through and those biters get picked off first and then the rest of them just continue on their way
Makes me wonder if that happens a lot off the beach as well. School comes through and those biters get picked off first and then the rest of them just continue on their way
