Th, Fri, Sat Newport Report...buts and salmon

[Fishmstr]

Fished out of Newport thursday, friday and saturday. Caught our limit of halibut at the ranch each day by 9:30. We had a sweet drift on the NW edge of the ranch and fished the exact same drift 3 days straight. At least 1 fish on each drift. Biggest fish was 49 inches.
Fished the rockpile friday for salmon. Hooked and lost a nice fish...either small nookie or very big coho.
Fished the rockpile for about an hour yesterday for nada. Water had gotten warm and was clear blue. Ran inside to nice break we saw on friday (and 3 trollers). Water was brown and 54. Put out the rods and boom...a nice hatchery coho of about 6 pounds. We trolled for another 6 hours, probably had 15 knockdowns!!! Hooked up 8 or 9 fish, but only put 4 in the net (Had 3 green horns in the boat). Fortunately all 3 coho were clipped that we got in the net...and the 4th fish was a 25 pound Chinook. Got that one on the downrigger at 60 feet. Also had several Coho on at that same depth. The chinook was awesome and totally kicked my buddies butt. btw, it had a small flatfish in its belly, probably a sanddab. At least you know that they really are on the bottom most of the time. The chinook and the coho all had nice 4-6 inch herring in their bellies too. We were fishing 5-6 miles straight out in 180-210 feet of water.
Epic day. What an awesome 3 days. The water and weather couldn't have been better (although it was a little snotty this morning). I am pooped and couldn't have fished today if I wanted!!!
See you back out there in a couple of weeks. Hopefully the tuna will be close again (and the ocean flat).

steve
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