Catch America Ocean Salmon Hub
How to Catch Buoy 10 and Ocean King Salmon
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At Buoy 10 and out in the ocean, Capt. Austin Moser fishes a Hawken plug-cut stuffer bait tipped with a hoochie, packed with finely diced tuna and charged with Salmon Slayer scent. Scent and fresh tuna are the difference. For fast, high-speed chromer action he switches to the Hawken Simon Spin Bait. Keep the bait charged, swap in fresh tuna often, and stay on the fall king and coho run that shows August through October.
How do you rig a stuffer bait for Buoy 10 salmon?
Austin Moser starts with a Hawken plug-cut stuffer bait, favoring the Wonderbread color with its glow belly. He adds a hoochie to the back and slips in a P-Line tinsel insert for a little extra pop and flavor. Then he stuffs the bait with tuna and charges it with Salmon Slayer scent. That plug cut, he says, works so good in the ocean.
How do you mix tuna and scent for salmon bait?
Squirt about a tablespoon of Salmon Slayer scent into your tuna. Chop the tuna up small and diced fine, then mix it around really well so the scent works all the way through. Dice it fine because there is a lot packed into each bait. When a bait fades, pull the old tuna out and press in a fresh dab.
What scent does Austin Moser use at Buoy 10?
Moser fishes the Salmon Slayer scent, a Pro-Cure based formula he put together with Catch America. He has used this formula at Buoy 10 for a long time before it was bottled. Out on the water he says the boat kept running out of scented tuna because they were catching so many fish on it.
When is the Buoy 10 and ocean salmon season?
Moser fished Buoy 10 in early August with the ocean still open, calling it fast coho rodeo action. On the Columbia, guide Scott Kaul notes the fall king salmon run shows up roughly August through October, until the rains come and the fish scatter upriver. That fall window overlaps the coho, which makes late summer prime at the buoy.
What salmon runs come through the Columbia River?
Scott Kaul of Brad's Killer Fishing Gear counts four distinct king salmon runs on the Columbia: a true winter run, the great-eating spring run, a summer run once famous for the giant June Hogs at 80 to 100 pounds, and the fall run. On top of the kings the river also gets coho, sockeye, chum, the odd pink, and summer and winter steelhead.
What lure works for fast, high-speed salmon action?
When the chromers are coming fast, Moser rolls with the Hawken Simon Spin Bait. Filmed netting chromer after chromer while rolling with the ocean swells at Buoy 10, he smashed them on the spin bait. It is a simple, fast-paced program for aggressive, biting salmon when the bite is on and the boat is moving.
How often should you refresh the tuna in your bait?
Often. Moser refreshes constantly, opening the stuffer bait, pulling the old tuna, and pressing in a fresh, scented dab before dropping back down. He ran out of prepared tuna at the buoy because the fish kept eating it. Fresh, scent-charged tuna in every bait is what keeps the salmon committing, so do not let a bait go stale.
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Catching Buoy 10 and ocean king salmon FAQ
He reaches for the Wonderbread color, which has a glow belly. He carries a lot of different colors but that is the one he chose to fish that day at Buoy 10.
Yes. Moser adds a hoochie to the back of the plug-cut bait and slips in a P-Line tinsel insert. The tinsel adds a little pop and flavor and is one of his favorites.
About a tablespoon of Salmon Slayer scent squirted into the tuna, then mixed around really well so every bait carries the scent.
Fine-diced tuna lets the scent mix in really well and pack tight into the bait. Moser chops it small on purpose so there is a lot of scented meat in each stuffer bait.
They check for clipped adipose fins to separate hatchery fish from wild ones, scan snouts for coded wire tags that trace a fish to its hatchery of origin, and take length and scale samples to track run health and quotas.
The spring run. Scott Kaul calls them the tasty ones, the high-value fish anglers prize, and the fish they were targeting on the Columbia that trip.
The June Hogs were the old summer-run kings that made the Columbia famous for giant salmon, fish that could reach 80, 90, even 100 pounds.
At Buoy 10 near the mouth of the Columbia River and out in the ocean when it is open, chasing fall kings and coho.
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