FISHING
Count On Those Coho! Charter skippers, ocean salmon managers stoked about 2022 silver season. By MD Johnson
I
t’s funny, at least it is to me, how I’ve changed as a hunter and fisherman over the past half century. I … Wait! Did I say half century? Ugh! Anyway, I can recall vividly the anticipation associated with the first crappie fishing trip of the year to Pymatuning on the Ohio/Pennsylvania border. November 15, and the opening day of Ohio’s small game season. Duck season. Deer season. Turkey season. Then in 1993 – and again in 2015 – I moved to Southwest Washington. And while the anticipation didn’t waver, the subject matter did. Now it really became all about duck season. And smelt dipping. Razor clams and sturgeon. I was like the proverbial kid at Christmas, only this was much better than Christmas, which, as you know, only comes once a year, while the above and more – smelt, sturgeon, 107-day duck season, Eastside turkeys, chanterelle mushrooms, steamers, oyster – hell, they run 365 days a year if you work it right. Well, guess what, y’all? I’ve changed. Again. Oh, the thought of getting out after the aforementioned species still makes me all, well, giggly, but now, and thanks in large part to my wife, Julie, and her teaching, it’s salmon. Not kings or sockeye, but silvers. And those at the mouth of the Columbia; specifically, the North Jetty. Oh, yeah! Give me an 8-foot-6 medium-heavy
With solid coho forecasts for the Columbia and coastal rivers well to the north and south of Buoy 10, salmon fishing out on the briny blue should be strong this summer. A total of 168,000 hatchery silvers are available from Oregon’s Cape Falcon north to Washington’s Neah Bay, and another 100,000 clipped coho can be kept from Garibaldi south to Port Orford. Blaine Murphy caught this one while fishing with Jarod Higginbotham. (JAROD HIGGINBOTHAM)
nwsportsmanmag.com | JULY 2022
Northwest Sportsman 101
