Chum salmon are a vastly underrated target species of salmon! Yes, food quality is not great, but if you’ve been doing it right each salmon season, your freezer is already full of high-quality chinook and coho salmon.
Chum salmon reconnects me to the joy of salmon fishing in rivers, one of my all-time favorite pursuits. It’s not about the meat, it’s about the fun!
If you are new to salmon fishing and you want to have success quickly, to get that immediate gratification for your efforts to learn how to fish for salmon in the rivers, chum salmon fishing is exactly where you should start.
Why should you start with chum salmon? Because they are the most aggressive and willing biters of all five species of pacific salmon.
This is particularly true when it comes to float fishing for chum salmon, which is the most important technique to master when trying to target salmon in the rivers and get them to bite.
If you are flossing for chum salmon, it’s like: How do you say you don’t know how to fish for salmon without actually saying you don’t know how to fish for salmon?
Because, seriously, they are such willing biters, flossing is highly unnecessary.
A joke around chum salmon might be to “literally try to catch any other species of salmon and you will catch chum.”
You can catch chum salmon with jigs under a float, eggs under a float, bead under a float, drift gear, plugs, spinners, twitching jigs…name a salmon fishing technique and it probably works on chum salmon.
So let’s get started actually catching these wonderful salmon!
How to get started fishing for chum salmon?
I’m going to recommend, as I often do that you read and fully process my river fishing for salmon guide. Unbiased opinion here: It’s the best free resource on the topic.
You need to have a few basics down about river fishing for salmon to target any species and expect to be successful and I don’t want to repeat the wealth of information that’s in the aforementioned linked guide.
Also, lower down in this page I cover the where to fish question as well as the basic gear you need to get started.
I’m going to advocate for the most basic and simplest way for you to proceed on this quest of hooking many chum salmon. And that means you are going to need to fish a jig under a float.
Not just any jig, but a specific one I will describe below.
You need to read my guide to float fishing for salmon so I don’t have to cover all the basics of float fishing here.
You can also watch the below video on the topic, though it’s targeted for chinook with eggs under a float, most of the same principles apply here as well.
Now that you know enough about float fishing for salmon we can show the specific setup you need.
I have several links to buy gear like the one below. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. You pay the same price regardless, and you can support PNWBestLife this way.
Tie a 2 ft leader of 20 lb fluorocarbon or mono to the bottom end of your bobber weight. Tie the other end to this exact jig:
You can use #11 which is the 1/8 oz size or the #111 which I believe is the 1/4 oz size. You can use the above link if you want or just go to your local tackle store but don’t count on finding this exact jig as many people know what’s up here.
You can also use #12 or #112 or other color patterns that closely match the purple/pink combo of #11/#111.
Tip this jig with frozen raw prawn.
Yes, this is the exact type of shrimp you buy at the store. It’s very important that you buy shrimp with the shell ON. The shell is what helps it stick on your hook for more than one cast.
You can cut a pinky nail size of shrimp off. The shrimp meat closest to the shrimp tail has the sturdiest shell, so I use that first. Put your hook through both sides of the shrimp and through both shell sides.
If you fish this setup the correct way (covered in the video above and float fishing guide) and in the correct river (covered below), and in the correct water (covered in the river fishing guide) and there’s chum around, you will get bit!
Where to fish for chum salmon?
Well, the obvious answer here is fishing in a river with chum in it! The good news for you is that if you live in Western WA, nearly every river has a chum run that’s not a Columbia River tributary.
Here’s a few more clues on the below forecast map from North of Falcon:
Pictured on this map from the north end of Puget Sound to the south end of the coast the following rivers have known chum runs:
- Nooksack River
- Skagit River
- Snohomish River
- Green River
- Puyallup River
- Nisqually River
- Minter Creek
- Hood Canal Rivers
- Dungeness River
- Humptulips River
- Chehalis River and tribs such as the Wynoochee and Satsop River
The links on the above list of rivers take you to the 2023 version of the trip planning resource.
Pick a river that’s closest to you and give it a whirl, but make sure that the river you are headed to, and the regulations allow you to fish for chum.
This is also your primary clue when fishing any river for a specific species of salmon when you’re unfamiliar with that river. The regulations will often mention specific species, though sometimes they will refer only to species of salmon you CANNOT retain which leaves a mystery as to which ones are present.
Hatchery reports are not always helpful, because most chum runs are not hatchery-supported.
The second thing to consider in where to fish for chum salmon has to do with finding the right water to fish. I don’t draw maps to fishing spots on this website or YouTube channel unless they are already well-known spots.
This information gets consumed by tens of thousands of people and what a disservice it would be to blow up some poor anglers’ favorite fishing spot.
The reality is that if you really want to fish for salmon, finding a good fishing spot is not the hardest thing. You have to drive the river, look for parked vehicles, public land, fisherman’s trails, etc, and go figure it out.
There’s a great variety of water chum salmon will hold in. From fast walking speed water all the way to complete frog water with no movement.
When chum salmon are present, they will almost always telegraph their presence by coming to the surface and rolling, creating a slight splash or disturbance. Most species of salmon will do this, though not always.
Avoid fishing places where the water is flowing very hard, or where there’s no definition in the water such as a big fast run. Also, if you can see the bottom due to being only a few feet deeper, these are also places to avoid.
Best fishing gear for catching chum salmon?
It’s important to note that a chum salmon is 2nd only to a chinook in size and it can absolutely put up an incredible fight!
Chum will thrash around a bit like coho, but when you try to force them in, you will feel the absolute strength of this salmon as they can quickly rip off a line peeling run you would associate with chinook, the king of salmon.
All of this requires a sturdy enough rod to handle this fish and is also well suited for the duties of float fishing. I prefer a 10’6 medium power float rod for these fish.
Pair it with what I think is the ultimate casting reel for this technique: The Shimano Curado.
Spool the above casting reel with high vis 30 lb braided line.
You can also read my guide to best fishing rod for salmon to learn more about why I like this setup.
One of the dynamics of catching chum is that they grow these big teeth as they get closer to spawning. I mean, some truly fearsome fangs on the front of their mouth. Do you want to reach your hand in there to get your hook?
They also like to flop around making it hard to remove a hook from their mouth that they often take somewhat deeply given how aggressive they are.
I highly recommend getting a conservation net and using it to safely net the chum salmon, get it stable while keeping it in the water, and use pliers to reach in and grab the hook.
We typically don’t retain chum for harvest as their meet quality degrades quickly after they enter fresh water.
