UTER
Photo: Focus Saranpat Ouilapan, CC0 · Wikimedia Commons
Oncorhynchus keta
How to catch Chum (dog) salmon
Chum (dog) salmon feed in 42–58°F water and bite best at 46–54°F. Fish Scouter's season calendar follows them in 3 waters.
25 pts · trophy at 30"Feeds 42–58°FBest 46–54°FIn season nowBeach / surfPass / inletChannel edgeRiverCreek / stream
About
The dog salmon: a big, calico-barred, hard-pulling fish with a mouth full of teeth, late in the year in Puget Sound and Hood Canal and summer in Alaska's terminal areas. Underrated on the end of a line.
How to fish it
Off the beach at the creek mouths — a float and jig or a corky drifted on the incoming tide.
What it eats
chartreuse corky and yarnpink or chartreuse jigshoochies at the hatchery sites
Live bait for it
HerringCut-plug for salmon: head off at an angle, guts out, two hooks in tandem so it spins slow behind a flasher or a banana weight. Whole and live on a circle hook for stripers where the herring run.
Salmon eggs (roe)A dime-sized spawn sac tied in mesh, or single eggs on a #10 to #6 egg hook, drifted along the bottom for steelhead, trout and salmon. Check the state's rule — bait is banned on many trout and salmon waters.
What to fish it with
the sizes that fish itLeader20–40 lb fluorocarbon
Hook#1–4/0
Jig head1/8–1/2 oz
Braid10–30 lb
The rule
not confirmed hereRules differ by state — check WDFW or ADF&G before you keep one.
The current rule →Where it is, month by month
PPeakSSpawningAArriving·AroundLLeaving
Alaska & Hawaii