Four Techniques for Schwacking Chum Salmon Leave a reply

I was talking to guide Phil Stephens of Mystical Legends Guide Service last week about how the fishing had been recently on the Humptulips River and he exclaimed, "There's plenty of kings and silvers in there but you can't get past the infestation of chums to get to them!" Eeek…tough duty Phil!

I'm still chuckling about his comment, as I know what its like to have every single piece of tackle in the boat thrashed to pieces by these gory critters. What they lack in sexiness, however, they more than make up for with fighting ability.  

Chum dawgy's usually start to trickle into the rivers in Western Washington around late October and by the middle of November many rivers, as Phil would say, become "infested" with them. While the North Puget Sound chum runs have been down considerably in recent years that's still a great place to tear up some tackle on these fish. The Nisqually, the Chehalis system rivers, the Humptulips, and the rivers of the Hood Canal all provide excellent chum fishing. 

As with any other fish species there's a handful of techniques that consistently puts fish on the bank. Here's my top four techniques for targetting chum salmon after they enter the rivers of Western Washington:

Kwikfish
Backtrolling Kwiky's is by far the most lethal technique for schwacking chums. The plugs that reign supreme in this category are the "Funky Chicken" 3132 and the Silver/Cerise/Purple model 0745. Wrap these plugs with a sardine fillet and they will get tatered all day long. There are several sizes to choose from, but I prefer the K-15 because it's easy to tune with a large sardine fillet and they'll dive as deep as 15 feet flat-lined. Don't be surprised if you catch a Chinook, silver, or even an early winter run steelhead doing this!

Floatfishing
Chums simply go goony-goo-goo for a large pink or cerise jig under a float. Fish jigs for chums the same way you would for steelhead except you'll want to use a jig with a much larger profile for chums. I like to use rabbit zonker strips and marabou in my jigs so that they have a lot of action underwater. They will definitely hit a naked jig, but tip the jig with some prawn meat or an 18 count shrimp tail and hang on. The advantage of using this technique for chums is that you also limit the number of foul hooked fish.

Twitching Jigs
Chums will pounce on a twitched jig with authority. The best jig colors for chums are pink, cerise, and purple and marabou jigs work better on the Puget Sound rivers and hoochie jigs dominate the action on the coastal rivers. If you're not familiar with this technique here's a great VIDEO with Forks area guide Bob Kratzer on how to twitch jigs for fall salmon. 

Flyfishing
Chums hold over deeper gravel bars and in a lot of the steelhead travel lanes making them super accessible to fly fisherman. A good day of landing scrappy chums on the fly can be a total blast! My favorite way to fish chums on the bug rod is to use a floating line with a strike indicator and a heavily weighted pink, cerise, or purple zonker strip or marabou fly. This presents the fly in a way that reduces the amount of foul hooked fish. If chums are holed up in a deep back eddy a sinking tip with a purple/pink egg sucking leach is another great way to approach them. Cast the leach into the pool, let it sink a few feet, and then strip it back to the rod with short, sharp strips. We caught a lot of smoking hot chums doing this in my guiding days.

You'll notice that I left drift fishing off this list. I did that because the number of foul hooked fish using this technique usually out-weighs the number of legit hookups. Sure, there are days when chums will pound a corky and yarn, but the majority of the time you'll end up dragging them in the by the tail and that just ain't cool.

Chum fishing just got really hot in the last week on a few west side rivers, as was evidenced by my conversation with Phil, and the action will continue to be good well into early December. Take a turn at landing some chum salmon this fall and don't be afraid to post your photos and fishing reports over on the Outdoor Line forums. Ciao…for now!

Rob Endsley
The Outdoor Line
710 ESPN Seattle
www.theoutdoorline.com