Buoy Ten: Big Forecast, Big Effort and Big Fish! Leave a reply

The annual gathering known as Buoy 10 at the mouth of the mighty Columbia River is a special event every year but this year’s forecast of 1.6 million chinook and nearly a million coho added even more anticipation and participation!

Evidence of the “participation” aspect of this year’s Buoy Ten fishery was evident at ol’ red number 10 itself as we witnessed the crowd amass on the boundary on the very first flood tide of our trip.

Brandon Robichaux has not seen a crowd like this since, well, we were here last year!

After getting to Astoria and getting gear in the water shortly after noon we didn’t feel too bad about ending up going two for three with an upriver bright and a nice coho!

King 5 News Anchor Greg Copeland joined us for a day on the ocean and we hooked over 30 coho and several chinook on a flat, calm ocean!

Our best day resulted in Phil Michelsen (left) nailing a beautiful 35 pounder, yours truly with a 30, a nice coho and Greg Copeland limiting with a 20 pound chinook and a coho too!

Here is a video that John Martinis and I shot that details the techniques we utilized in the Buoy 10 fishery:

The fact that Labor Day is fast upon us is no reason to stop thinking about a trip down to one of the best salmon fisheries on the coast! In fact, fishing pressure drops so much after the three-day weekend that you’ve practically got the place to yourself…well, you will have to share the place with several thousand chinook and coho!

Tom Nelson
The Outdoor Line
710 ESPN Seattle