54 Northwest Sportsman AUGUST 2019 | nwsportsmanmag.com
and add a 3- or 4-ounce sinker to the end.
Then find a school of anchovy, which
might give their location away by boiling
the surface or appear as a large mass on
your fish finder. Drop your rig into the
school and hold on. In just a few minutes
you can catch enough bait to last all day.
Most rig a fresh, whole anchovy on a
mooching leader whole (the bait is mostly
too soft and flimsy to plug cut). Guide Bill
Monroe Jr. (facebook.com/billmonroeout-
doors) arches the back of his anchovies
and runs an extra-long toothpick length-
wise through the body to hold the arch
and then runs his hook up through the
bait’s chin and into the forehead, leaving
the trailing hook dangling.
If you insist on using herring, try add-
ing a scent-filled pink worm (like a 4-inch
PowerBait worm) to the top hook of your
mooching leader – just let the worm hang
straight back alongside your herring.
Coho really go for bait rigged in combina-
tion with a pink worm.
Most anglers at Buoy 10 rig a flasher
(Fish Flash) directly to a diver or to the end
of a Free Sliding Spreader with a salmon
spinner or bait (herring or anchovy) trail-
ing 50 to 60 inches behind. To get down,
you may use a diver (Deep Six or Delta)
or cannonball-style sinker attached to an
18-inch dropper line, which might consist
of one of the new .051-inch-diameter Rig-
ging Wires offered by Yakima Bait. To help
eliminate line twist, it’s a good idea to
place a swivel half way down your leader.
Remember, the western fishing dead-
line at Buoy 10 is a north/south line ex-
tending through the famous navigation
marker. As a reference, it is located mid-
channel west of the entrance to the Ilwaco
channel. Also, coho must be of hatchery
origin to keep, and can be identified by
their missing adipose fin. This is the small
fin located on their back between the dor-
sal and tail fin.
Especially this year, it would be wise to
check myodfw.com and wdfw.wa.gov for
rule updates. Given the huge run, it’s pos-
sible the states could liberalize the limit. NSEditor’s note: The author is a brand manager
and part of the management team at Yaki-
ma Bait. Like Buzz on Facebook.