Welcome back to another Ketchikan Fishing Minute.
The rain has not let up much this month. Remember we had about twelve days of sunshine to start August, but since that time, over 23 inches of rain have fallen in the Ketchikan area!
Luckily, this past Monday was one of the few recent days without much rain. Oscar and I headed out from Clover Pass Resort and motored over to the back side of Grant Island, where Silverking Lodge is located. That area is typically productive at this time of year, with large fall coho congregating on that side of the island.
We both used downriggers at a depth of about forty feet. I was trailing a hoochie, as usual, while Oscar was using a cut plug herring. We took a few trolls back and forth in that area, pulling in three silvers over the course of about 90 minutes. Oscar got a strike on top of the water, with a nice coho hitting his bait before he could lower it on the downrigger. That fish turned out to have some good size to it, weighing nearly 12 pounds. In hindsight, we probably should have fished closer to the surface, as we marked a lot of bait on the depth finder, and could see bait fish jumping as we trolled through.
We then moved over to the west side of Betton Island, and while the bite picked up a bit, there were definitely more pink salmon hanging around that area. We pulled in two more silvers and three pink salmon before heading back to the dock.
While the bite was never very heavy that morning, it was steady, with strikes coming at a consistent pace. This is typical for late August and into September, as the pinks move into the freshwater to spawn, and the silvers spread out.
While we may complain about the rain in Ketchikan on occasion, we want to take a moment to send our thoughts and prayers to the people in southeast Texas, and our hope for a speedy recovery from the devastating effects of Hurricane Harvey.
I will get on the water a couple of times this week and give you the details next Thursday on another Ketchikan Fishing Minute.