Coho often are taken on light tackle, providing a lot of sport.

Located at the northwestern tip of Washington’s Olympic Peninsula, Neah Bay also hosts hordes of anglers looking to tap into this bonanza. It’s a crazy happening that at times can become a circus of fishermen and fish. Hit it right, and you’ll see schools of cohos weighing anywhere from 6 to 20 pounds feeding on the surface in the midst of diving, screaming gulls. But “schools” might give you the wrong idea; it’s more like a university. Often the activity of feeding fish can be measured in hundreds of acres instead of hundreds of fish.

The salmon are there because of the forage. Krill, shrimp-like invertebrates, attract coho and give them their bright-orange flesh. But there are also shoals of herring, sardines and anchovies. This abundance of food is the draw for salmon as they gorge to put on fat for their spawning journey. The food is so abundant and so rich, coho can add 1 pound of body weight a week during their stay.

This concentration of salmon is a milling ground where schools returning from their northern Pacific pastures gather and split, with some heading south to rivers on the Washington coast. Other fish head for the rivers in Puget Sound. Normally, coho begin arriving in early summer, with a big push in August that gets stronger as the season progresses. 

Tackle can run the gamut from downriggers and heavy gear to flies.

Early in the season, downriggers are necessary since the coho schools (mixed with chinook as well) tend to hold deeper in the water, feeding on vast shoals of herring. Flashers come into play at this time in combination with spoons, flies or bait.

From a sporting standpoint, light tackle offers fishermen the most fun and is particularly effective when the fish are feeding near the surface on krill.

Plug-cut herring fished closely behind the boat is a standard, but spoons work as well. At times, fishermen will need to run their lures deeper, and divers, such as the Luhr Jensen Dipsy Diver and Deep Six, do a good job keeping spoons down while not running too far behind the boat. Coho have no fear of boats and will frequently hit lures in the prop wash of a boat moving at a fast troll.

Bucktailing — trolling large flies on the surface in the prop wash — also is a popular and effective method. When a coho hits a trolled bucktail fly, the strikes usually are visible, and often are followed by the salmon jumping repeatedly close to the boat.

Lots of fly-fishermen take advantage of this fishing, and cast to milling schools of fish. Small baitfish patterns such as the Shock ’N Awe or a Clouser minnow, or even plain bucktails, are productive fly choices.