Fishing the Hanford Reach
During the months of September to the middle of October we have a very awesome fishery down at the Hanford Reach area. This stretch of the Columbia has the highest return of Chinook salmon in the entire Columbia River system.
Last year we almost hit a million Chinook returning to their spawning grounds on the Columbia. This a 50+mile of natural free flowing stretch of the Columbia River, with heavy fast moving currents. This can make an experienced fisherman new to this area, look very intimidating to fish.
This stretch of free flowing water and fast current speeds means it's time to do some back trolling!
Here are a few techniques to help you put more fish in your boat...
There are a couple ways you can back troll down at the Reach. One of the most popular techniques are running cured eggs behind a size 50 Jumbo Jet Diver. Running eggs can be the ticket to filling your punch card that day.
Fishing eggs doesn't take an expert to learn how to fish them. What you will need is a size 50 Jumbo Jet Diver, a brass or plastic sinker slider, an 8 mm. size bead to protect your knot, size 1 snap swivel, a 80 lb. class 6 bead chain swivel, 6 ft. of 30 lb.: 40 lb. mono leader, to a size 1 or 2 Spin-n-Glo. There are basically two styles of hook set ups you can do. The one I recommend is running a 3/0 or 4/0 Gamakatsu Octopus or Big River hook as your front hook with an egg loop knot.
You can find the Gamakatsu Octopus and others like it here.
The egg loop knot will hold your eggs onto the hook for a much longer time. Then from the 3/0 or 4/0 hook will trail behind a size 2 Red Gamakatsu treble hook, trailing right off the back of the cluster of eggs. Or, you can run two single hooks instead of running a single treble hook set up, both hook set ups will work well. I like running a treble hook, this gives me more points of contact to hook into the fish.
One big key factor to fishing with eggs and a Jet Diver is that you have to let the fish take the eggs. Which means if you start to see your rod getting a bite don't jump the gun and grab the rod right out of the rod holder to quickly, you have to let them take it and swallow it. I have been told to wait till your rod tip is touching the water.
You will know when to grab your rod, you just have to have some discipline and let them take it hard and just pick your rod up and start reeling. Don't give a big hook set cause you can pull the hooks out in this fast moving water, they pretty much hook themselves.
Another successful technique for back trolling is wrapped plugs
Wrapped plugs can be a lot of fun to fish, Chinook will crush these plugs. You want to get yourself some sardines and fillet them. Sardines are one of Chinooks top food source in the salt water. Sardines are very oily and put off a lot of scent more so than a herring would.
I would start out with a size 14 Kwik Fish or a size 15 Kwik Fish. The nice thing about running wrapped plugs is you can either run them on a long line off the back of your boat or run a 5-6 ft. leader of 30 lb. mono to a 6-8 oz. lead dropper sinker.
The lead dropper will help our gear get down deeper, these plugs ran straight off your mainline only dive down to around 20-25 ft. One critical key factor to fishing wrapped plugs is make sure your plugs runs true and straight and not to one side. If your plug is pulling to one side you will have to adjust your fillet to the center of the plug.
Once you have your plug running straight and true you're ready to let some line out and start fishing.
When back trolling you're going to have to try and keep your boat straight as possible. You can't run Jumbo Jet Divers, if you have your boat going side to side and not staying straight, you'll get a Jet Diver jammed between some rocks and have a big hang up. It's important to keep your boat on a straight line while back trolling.
Your speed is another key factor, you will want to keep yourself almost to a dead still but barely moving backwards with the current. When I was back trolling eggs we were trying to keep our boat speed to just under a ½ mph. You just want to have a nice slow speed but staying on that straight line. The current will do all the work for you. It will keep your Jumbo Jet Divers right on the bottom and right where the fish are holding at.
We fished in 17-25 ft. of water and the fast moving current helped keep our gear on the bottom the entire drift threw the hole. Even though your fishing in 20 ft. of water use the big 50 Jet Diver they tend not to get hung up as easy as, if you were running let's say, a size 30 Jet Diver.
Hanford Reach Technique #3: This one is for the Super Bait guys!
According to some local guides, they have had a lot of good success this year fishing Super Baits. The go to colors at the Reach are the Hot Tamale, Hotter Tamale, Groucho, Rotten Banana, Capital Hill (Hooked on Toys custom), and Twisted Sister.
In recent years when fishing Super Baits down at the Hanford Reach, the scent of choice has been garlic. These fall run Chinook are a lot more aggressive fish over the summer run Chinook. Garlic is an aggressive scent, and when there is a good garlic bite, it can be lights out for you, if you have a good strong garlic scent.
In recent years, I would add a table spoon or two of garlic scent to my tuna fish brine. Super Dipping Sauce makes an awesome garlic sauce that I've had great success with. Pro Cure makes a Bloody Tuna Garlic, which is also another awesome scent, it's probably one of Pro Cures top scents being sold.
Want to read up on Super Baits? Check out Chinook: How to Increase your Catch Rate.
Now is the time to gear up for fall Chinook. You have about two months left of some of the hottest salmon fishing on the Columbia River.
Good luck and be safe out there.