Hatchery coho to the fly in the waters offshore Pacific City three days ago.
So OK, this is a rather simplistic post but still it seems relevant, at least the question is one that i’m constantly asking myself each time I set to sea with fly rod in hand here at Pacific City, and especially when I am fishing for salmon or albacore.
The short answer is shown in the two photos following with all the bet hedging that recognizes day to day and fish to fish differences.
Contents of coho stomach, namely “crab spwwn” AKA baby crabs.
Congtents of chinook stomach from three days ago, namely one gooey partly digested anchovy and one barely digested squid.
It is worth noting that the coho took a 4″ white/chartreuse/bleeding mackerel Clouser and the Chinook took a 4″ brown and tan Clouser — pointing to the possibility of opportunistic feeding behavior and quite possibly rendering our best attempts to tie imitative flies rather futile.
Anyway, I hope this is amusing and entertaining. I also hope to be able to poke around in more ocean salmon stomachs soon.
Jay Nicholas
August 1st, 2018
Note: commercial squid harvest out of Winchester Bay was exceptionally instense this year. This may or may not be related to the seeming larger number of wild cohos (smaller than usual) in close off shore this season – perhaps being drawn to the bait fish.
Where did I put those squid patterns?
Thank you for the info. I am heading to the buoy 10 area next week, I will tie some clousers up. My question is do I cast and let drift on the swing, troll against the current? or just anchor and let it hang?