OH so humbling...

[Salmonator]

Headed for Astoria thursday morning with great expectations. Left Astoria friday in the afternoon with a six fish total for two days (4 rods) and scratching our heads. Yesterday it seemed like all 300 boats had a fish on at the same time. Today was a little slower but still lots of rods going down. Hookset and his gang were cleaning house and we saw Bill and Jen bobbing around like a cork outside of skipanon just before we left. I pulled up to their boat to say hi and think I freaked her out. I bet they get tons of crusty guys that they don't recognize pulling up to say hi images/icons/smile.gif Two of the three fish landed today were reeled in by my 5 year old son after all of us manly men seemed to lose everything we hooked. He just reeled until the fish was in the net. Maybe we'll figure it out next time.
I should mention that I saw the absolute worst C&R on nates i've ever seen in my life out there. Saw several fish laying in the bottom of boats before being literally thrown back into the water. Saw quite a few floating too. One guide sent a fish back in with a triple lindy. He didn't have his business name on the side of his boat for obvious reasons... Joe

[Deleted User]

Happens to everybody Joe. I remember a few years ago setting my personal record of losing 9 coho on and off in a row! I've lost lots of them this year to. Those 'hos are the shortest slashing strikers of all the salmon species in the salt; and even steelhead in the rivers. Frustrating. I started landing a higher ratio of them when I dropped the trailing hook about 1 1/2" below the herring tail and also dropping the rodtip (or a quick line strip pull if in the rodholder) right away on the first strike (so often short) and setting it on the next solid strike. You likely were doing similar too. But those dang things can rob bait better than any I know!

Steve

[sandi]

this year, and last, we have been drapping a 3 1/2" hoochie over the fresh whole herring and have had excellent hook-up ratio. the hooks are deep in the mouth - makes it difficult to release the unclipped fish. can only guess the reason for the deep hookset. i think the fish is focused on the hoochie and takes the herring down deep.

[Pitch Pocket]

We had the same problem Friday. Fished 2 rods from 7am to 2pm. Missed 2, lost 2, landed 3 and kept one nice 12# hen. We went hours without a strike. Looked like alot of others did too. The week previous we (3 rods) had 25 fish landed before 10am. I wish I would have read "The Guides Forcast" on fishing the early ebb before I went. I see how the guides limited now.