Sean, Mitch, Cooper and I logged four days on the water at Sekiu. What a week! Chinook Salmon fishing was really good last week for the opener, so it was an easy sell to drive up to Mason’s Resort. This is my second trip up there and it’s my new favorite place to set up fish camp.
Opening week in Sekiu had the perfect set of tides, those really fishy morning floods that get everyone excited. The tides were ebbing in the morning and flooding in the evening this week, reverse of the opener.
Learning the area on the first morning
We worked the area called The Caves on the first morning. You could idle out of Mason’s marina on your kicker and start trolling it’s right there! The larger portion of the Sekiu fleet was working east of us off Slip Point in 250′-300′ of water. We did hear that it was better out there in the morning. We didn’t see a whole lot going on at The Caves, so we ran westward to Neah Bay to spend our day. In fact, each morning we headed to Marine Area 4, and only in the evenings after dinner did we fish at Sekiu… but we can talk about the Neah side of the trip in another post.
Each evening at sunset we fished just east of Slip Point, which is on the eastern side of Clallam Bay, opposite Sekiu. Starting at sunset and fishing for the couple hours before complete darkness. Fishing was really good, and aside from a couple other boats we pretty much had it to ourselves! We boated a couple Chinook each evening, all really nice fish.
Trolling at Sekiu’s Slip Point
We trolled in 150′-200′ of water with 140′ to 200′ of cable out. We stacked the downriggers, so had four lines out and really covered the lower half of the water column. The salmon were concentrated in a small zone. We continued to work that zone, and the flood tide must have made it a place they wanted to hold. I can’t say we figured out any sort of pattern on tackle, one bit a Hoochee, one bit the smaller Silver Horde Coho Killer White Lightning Spoon, a couple bit a 5″ Silver Horde Kingfisher Spoon… but the important thing was they were on the bite.
I’m already planning another trip to Sekiu at the end of the month… can’t wait to get back out there!
Master the Art of Salmon Mooching
