I'm headed out to the Strait Thursday night for a few days chasing coho. Can anyone tell me how the fly fishing has been out of Neah Bay and/or Sekiu the past couple days? Any help will be much appreciated.
fished the 1st and 2nd. didn't fish in close (entrance) but fished further offshore due to the fact that the last few close in trips resulted in lots of fish but very small (3-5 lbs.) which is not what i want in late august- early sept. offshore there's bigger fish (monday got a 17 clipped, tue got a 12 clipped) but there's always a shot at some bigger fish (9-11 lbs) in closer if you're willing to weed through lots of smaller fish. there are less pinks (yehhh!!!) around, but offshore the mackerel are serious problems at times (you'd think the 48 degree water would get rid of them).
haven't heard about bigger fish in sekiu, but this possible shot of rain sun-mon may pull some fish in closer (along with probably turning the ocean ugly).
thanks very much for the report Chris. Sounds like you found some piggie coho out there with the macks. How the heck are the mackerel dealing with the 48 deg water???
We may see you out there this weekend, though I'm pretty sure we'll be at Sekiu tonight and tomorrow morning... my fingers are crossed for light wind and flat water for at least Fri-Sat...
Just a quick report on our weekend in the Strait. We fished Sekiu on Friday in surprisingly rough, cold, foggy, and windy weather. We started bucktailing about 2.5 miles straight north of the Coho and began hooking and mostly losing a lot of fish. My buddy hooked a great big coho that jumped 4 or 5 times and ran around the boat for 20 minutes before spitting the hook. After a couple hours of good bucktailing that bite died for us, though the gear fishers were continuing to catch. We took a break and came out for a couple hours in the afternoon and had more good bucktailing but zero luck casting. Caught a few pinks too while fishing jigs down 20-30 feet.
Saturday we went to Neah Bay and fished a mile east of the Whistle buoy. Lots of birds, herring, and coho around there in the morning. Casting for coho was excellent until about 11am. We didn't land any big clipped fish, though I saw a few in the low teens go into other boats. Later that afternoon the bite turned on again in that same general area, though we missed it while looking for rockfish around tatoosh. We did find a few more fish around midway in the afternoon. Weather and water conditions were great.
Yesterday we fished Sekiu again and caught NADA. This, in spite of the fact that coho were all over the surface slurping krill. The gear guys appeared to start slow but by mid-morning were catching a lot of fish. But we couldn't dredge one up with deep sunk flies or bucktails. Very frustrating. And there were a lot of big clipped coho at the dock when we quit at noon. Water conditions were absolute glass too ... This last week of fishing at Neah Bay should be super for fly fishing, I don't know what to think about Sekiu for the fly rod.
There were no signs of fish in the kelp beds, by the way.
Thanks for the report, sounds like classic fall coho action to me. I once kept a clipped fish that had a softball sized ball of krill in it's gut. Similarly, some really big striped bass get into the shrimp slurping mode on this coast as well.
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Related Threads
?
?
?
?
?
Fly Fishing Forum
163.8K posts
38.8K members
Since 2000
A forum community dedicated to fly fishing and sporting enthusiasts. Come join the discussion about safety, licenses, tips, tricks, rivers, reviews, accessories, classifieds, and more!