WILD BLOG: Pitching eggs for Humptulips River fall Chinook and coho
POSTED Oct. 8, 2010 / 7:40 p.m.

HUMPTULIPS, Wash. - It takes precisely 13 seconds for Duane Inglin's called shot to play out for the camera.

"Let's see if we can get a bobber down," Big D. says as he flips a float and an oozing gob of Fire Cured eggs out into the sluggish current of the Humptulips River.

5 ... 4 ... 3 ... 2 ... 1 ... bloop. Bobber down. Fish on, a mint-bright coho.

And for good measure, Inglin does it again, once more with the camera rolling.

5 ... 4 ... 3 ... 2 ... 1 ... bloop. Bobber down.

I could repeat this scene over and over and over again, because this is exactly how it happened over and over and over again on the Humptulips River as Duane, myself, Bill "Swanny" Swann and Chris Shaffer from Pautzke Bait Co. floated the Hump this week. I'll spare the repitition.

Here's the deal: fall Chinook and coho are egg biters, they like their baits big, wet and sloppy, and we were only too glad to oblige.

Bright fish aplenty

You can spend the next two months looking for a better pieceof water for float-and-egg fishing for fall Chinook and coho than the long, deep, woody trough that we were fishing on the middle Humtulips, but you'll be wasting your time. That spot is/was the shizzle. And, for overall opportunity for both fall kings and coho, the Hump proper is the shizzle, too.

The Columbia's fall Chinook season hit its peak two weeks ago and the Cowlitz will soon follow suit. That'll leave the coastal streams like the Hump, Hoh or Quillyute as your best bets for fall kings, and, for my money, the Hump is the leader of that pack.

We floated the river when it was low and clear last week, at the tail end of a weirdly extended fall dry spell, when fresh fish should've been few and far between. The majority of the fish we hooked were bright and fresh, though, aggressive and receptive to a cloud of egg goo. A handful of our coho bit on twitched jigs. We saw exactly one fish hooked on a spinner all week, which, considering the low, clear water, wasn't a shock.

As the photos at the bottom of the page attest, there are plenty of snaggle-toothed, bronze-backed kings in the system, but we didn't have any problems finding bright Chinook.

Or bright coho, for that matter.

This fishery will churn out its usual collection of tomato cans and tarbabies in November and early December - we've seen some major "Smoker of the Year" candidates from the Hump's late-fall fishery - but you can put your Marlboros away for at least for another month or so as plenty of fresh, bright, sea-lice-ridden silvers mix in with the blushy hooknoses this month.

That should be especially true over the next couple of weeks as some much-needed rain sucks a bunch of fresh fish up out of Grays Harbor and into the Hump.

There'll be occasional slowdowns, though: nets will be strung across the river from Oct. 11 to Oct. 15, and again Oct. 20-22.

It doesn't take long for the Hump to recharge after the nets come out, but your fishing will be significantly slower during those eight days when they're in.

The 4-1-1 on eggs for fall Chinook, coho
A fall Chinook undergoes a swift, funky physiogical switch once it enters the estuary. I don't know exactly what happens, and why a creature that was a marine fish-eater for the previous two, three or four years of its life suddenly has the urge to bite eggs so willingly, but Chinook love sulfite-cured eggs. It's my belief that on certain systems - the Tillamook streams, the Hump, etc. - the egg bite is even more pronounced.

Frank Haw, who, by almost anybody's standard, is the Dean of Washington Fish Biologists, is equally perplexed by certain runs of fall Chinook's attraction to eggs, but at least he has a theory.

"Some races of fall Chinook are much more willing to bite after they've staged in the estuary than others," Haw observes. "They’re not actively feeding, but the males are turned on by spawning activity, so maybe they’re excited by the presence of eggs. Females, on the other hand, have this inherent tendency to guard the redds. Maybe they're stimulated by the presence of eggs as well. I don't really know why some fall Chinook react they way they do, but, I wouldn't question it much. If you're catching them on eggs, I'd keep fishing eggs."

Me? No theory. I just know they like their baits ooey, gooey, rich and chewy. They can be finicky, though, and the slightest change to your eggs can make a big difference.

The first day, which was about 10 degrees cooler and fog-shrouded for the first four hours of the day, the red/pink, extra-juicy, low-sulfite/higher-sugar eggs were the ticket.

Half Fire Cure, half Swanny's Secret Cure, which contains a higher sugar content.

We railed coho after Chinook after coho on floats and eggs while the gearbangers flailed away, with nothing to show for it.

Day 2, however, was a different story altogether: No fog, and with sunshine on the water earlier than the day before, we felt like we'd have our best action all week. However, we arrived at the Corner Hole three hours earlier than we had the previous day, so it was significantly cooler and darker, with heavy shadows covering the water for the first couple of hours of fishing.

Big difference, as fish sulked in the bottom of the deep, slow stretch of wood-filled water we were fishing. The first fish bit on eggs that Duane drifted through the upper end of the hole while Swanny and I had three or four non-commital bites on baits moving slightly faster under floats in the middle and bottom end.

Once the sun hit the water, though, it was game on.

Both Chinook and coho showed a definite preference for different eggs, too: specifially, the hotter, higher-sulfite, power-packed ones Duane had cured up the day before while doing a quick-and-dirty riverside demo for Pautzke on how to cure eggs in red Fire Cure.

These eggs were more ruby-red than pink, less cloudy on the first cast, but abundantly milky on the third, fourth and fifth drifts. They were also noticeably hotter than the eggs from the day before.

Check out the eggs at left.

They were cured 24 earlier in straight red Fire Cure and left to reabsorb the liquid overnight. They hadn't had a chance to over-juice and allow any extra liquid to leak out, so they were almost pure liquid on the inside.

The Chinook and coho loved 'em that morning.

The bites on the "ruby reds" were noticeably harder, and fish stayed on longer than on the lighter, less-sulfited eggs from the day before.

"You never go to the river with just one cure," Swanny says.

The setup
Simple, straightforward rigging: 9-foot St. Croix AVS90MLF2 (6- to 10-pound) and AZVS90MF2 (8- to 12-pound) rods, 30-pound Power Pro mainline, 20-pound Maxima Ultra Green leader, 1/2-ounce Beau Mac floats, 2/0 Owner mosquito hooks.

-JS

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