I got to finally fish this urban fishery with Gringo Pescador and my friend Robbie from work. I’ve been reading reports for several years, but just have never got out here. The fish are in and the nets aren’t so it was time to go fishing!

We launched at 6am. 1st Ave launch is right under the bridge, with limited parking. Gringo tells me on busy days people end up parking blocks away from the launch. Our plan was to start the day running plugs, and later anchor up and later float some eggs and throw some hardware.

We ran three rods and it didn’t take long before we were hooking fish. We tried a few different colors of plugs. I was running mine off a planer board, 40 feet out, connect to the planer board, and then run it out another 35-40 so it was out away from the boat. Early on we ran some dropper weights but as the tide ran out we ran straight plugs. Water depth was 25-30 feet dropping down to 12-16 feet.

The planer board was the hot rod, having three strikes, and catching one fish. There was a bit of a learning curve because after the fish strikes and I reeled in the line someone would have to unclip the board. Even so, I was pretty satisfied with the results. Robbie caught a fish trolling a green spin-n-glow with eggs. Gringo had a couple bumps but no love trolling his plug.

We trolled down to he area around 112th St bridge and anchored up to try floats and eggs. I hooked one pretty quick, and then Gringo hooked up with a couple, the second being a little 12” coho he released. I thought we’d have a nice time of getting limits on eggs but as soon as the river started slowing down and the tide started coming in the egg bite died (around noon or so).

After a nice hot lunch of brats cooked on Gringo’s grill we got back to trolling. Sad to say, the bite was done for us. We ended up with four chrome-bright coho and a fun day of memories. Wish I could go out and do it again but next stop is the Big C for some chinook action. Duwamish video is being worked on and will come out soon!

Thanks Gringo for another great day on the water.

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