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Welcome to our saltwater salmon fishing page. We will cover some of the popular methods for targeting and catching king and silver salmon in the Pacific Ocean and the coastal bays of Oregon and Washington. The most popular and effective method of fishing for saltwater salmon is trolling using either divers or downriggers with baitfish - anchovies or herring. Spoons, squid skirts (hoochies), commercial salmon lures are also a effective method in the Ocean. In the estuaries bait is more effective than the hardware with the exception of in warm water conditions spinners can produce well with red and white combinations being my favorite. The key to catching salmon in the salt is to first find them and second to have your baits at the right depth. The easiest method when using divers is to pull the line from the real to the first eye on the rod and to count number of pulls, set each rod at a slightly different pull count until you find the depth that the feeding fish are traveling. for the waters we fish it is generally 10 to 25 pulls.
For deeper water either mooching, jigging or the use of downriggers is required. Most herring fishing is done with the bait rigged either whole or plug cut and is rigged so the bait rolls, some people prefer a tight fast spin some prefer a wide slow roll on the baits. I use the fast and tight spin. Anchovies are usually rigged whole and the use of a nose clip can help get the roll right. Plug cutting a herring can be a bit of an art form and there are probably as many different ways to rig them as there are fisherman that use them. The key is to find a method that works for you and stick with it. King salmon or as we know them Chinook salmon will sometimes snap at the bait for quite sometime before they actually take it and the Coho or silver salmon will usually just slam it. A common mistake is to pull back on the fishing rod when a king begins to take it instead of letting them have line or dropping the bait back to them which is the correct way to do it. I also do not set the hook I let the fish take the bait, turn and hook themselves. Salmon when they take the bait good will hook themselves and all a hook set will do is break them off. Some anglers prefer the use of flashers as an added fish attractant, they are effective but also can cause lots of tangles. The picture below is my favorite rig - our new patent pending "Flash Rattle & Dive" flashing fishing diver rigged with six to eight feet of 50lb leader and a two hook herring rig. My number one color is chartreuse with blood red being my next favorite.
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