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SEKIU SALMONING
“The Last Shout”
By JOHN KEIZER
April is the time to hitch up the boat and book a room at Sekiu for the last shout at winter blackmouth this year.
Hands down, for large winter blackmouth you need to be on the Strait, lots of good water and plenty of bait can all lead to some fantastic blackmouth fishing.
One of the most pleasurable things about this time of the year is the lack of crowds. Many times, I have towed my North River O/S up to fish Sekiu and had all the prime areas to fish with little or no angler pressure and plenty of hook-ups, especially during the week. The fish are not giants like their summer Alaska returning brothers, but action can be fast and furious on hatchery blackmouth chinook salmon from just legal 22” size up into the teens. (Did anyone mention a shot at an early springer?!)
Successful blackmouth fishing in begins with understanding the body of water that you are fishing.
Puget Sound is not a lake or a bay or even the ocean, it is its own unique body of water that more closely resembles a river than anything else. A very special river that changes direction at every tidal movement and winter blackmouth will relate their position in the river accordingly.
So how do you find winter blackmouth? Don’t look for the salmon but rather look for what attracts them.
In the many years I have fished Puget Sound I have found that Puget Sound blackmouth salmon relate to three things; structure, current and food.
We have all heard the line, “Find the bait-find the fish.” It sounds so easy but so many anglers ignore this simple advice in locating these fish. Blackmouth salmon are voracious feeders and will also be looking for sand lance (candlefish) or herring.
are an ecologically important forage fish throughout the Straits and Puget Sound where they school in many bays, banks and inlets. Sand lance are important food for young salmon who crave the high oil content; 35% of juvenile salmon diets are composed of sand lance and blackmouth salmon depend on sand lance for 60% of their diet. Sand lance spawning occurs at high tide in shallow water on sand-gravel beaches. Sand lance will also use sandy beaches for spawning. Knowing when and where this food source is will directly reflect on locating blackmouth….
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