Late summer salmon fishing off Ilwaco navigates traffic jam of fish

The late summer salmon fishing grounds off Ilwaco are some of the most diverse along the entire West Coast.

Options abound with many trying the ocean while others choose the Lower Columbia River's brackish water from Buoy 10 to the Astoria-Megler Bridge that connects Washington and Oregon.

Ilwaco is the main intersection of chinook and coho turning into the Columbia, and others on the migration highway to Oregon and California.

The Columbia River alone is expecting a return of 651,300 fall chinook and 317,200 coho. Add southern-bound fish, including 1.65 million fall chinook to the Klamath River and another 819,400 bound for the Sacramento River, and you've got a constant traffic jam of fish.

I had a chance to experience this unique salmon fishery earlier this week. We'd heard about a good salmon bite the day before our arrival in the ocean off Long Beach, which is just a stone's throw away from the Cape Disappointment Lighthouse on the southwestern tip of Washington.

The weather was nice as we left the Ilwaco Marina last Sunday, and gentle swells greeted us as we crossed one of the most treacherous ocean bars known to seafarers as the "Graveyard of the Pacific" for the many shipwrecks that have occurred in the area.

As we turned the corner and headed north off Ilwaco's North Jetty my fishing partner, Tony Floor of Olympia, pointed his boat toward the shallow surf line off Long Beach.

"I'm marking fish just off the bottom in 35 feet of water, and there's a lot of bait too," said Floor, who was closely watching the fish finder light up with action under our boat.

It didn't take long for one of the rods to buckle down as Floor hooked and released an undersized salmon where the minimum size limit is 24 inches for chinook and 16 inches for hatchery coho.

A few minutes later Floor's rod went down in the water again, and this time a faulty tied leader got the best of us as he lost the king. In just a mere hour of fishing we landed one 15-pound king, and released or lost another five fish.

Soon after my rod lurched deep into the water, and after a 10-minute battle I landed a nice 17-pound king.

As we neared early afternoon, my rod took a nose dive and my son Tegan was hooked into a king. This 15-pound fish made some strong runs on the surface and didn't want to get near the boat, but eventually tired and came to the net.

Once the schools of bait and fish disappeared we decided to move into the Lower Columbia just above the Astoria-Megler Bridge on the late afternoon flood tide, where Clyde McBrayer of Olympia got his chance and landed the biggest king of the day that weighed 22 pounds.

This scenario will be played out numerous times in the days ahead as the chinook return peaks, followed by a coho fishery that goes well into October.

By Mark Yuasa Seattle Times staff reporter

By Mark Yuasa
Seattle Times staff reporter