Friday is being bandied about as the most likely day for NOAA Fisheries to announce its approval or rejection of state/tribal-negotiated summer Puget Sound salmon fisheries. That’s not a firm date, just a rumor, and the word that the slate of seasons is a go or no go could be coming out by the time you read this, or tomorrow, or early next week, or who knows. We’ll find out first on the state Department of Fish and Wildlife’s website at www.wdfw.wa.gov/fishing.
Meanwhile, coastal salmon fishing opens July 1, and it’s expected to be a decent fishery for chinook but with very limited opportunity on a depressed coho run. The only marine area where anglers may keep hatchery coho, according to state biologist Joe Hymer in Vancouver, will be Marine Area 1 (Ilwaco).
Combined with a short season — daily, July 1 through Aug. 21 at Westport, for instance, or until the Area 2 quota of 16,600 chinook is reached — those itching to land a king salmon probably should be making charter reservations as soon as possible.
The state forecast for chinook runs coming down the coast, with the majority headed for the Columbia River — the fish that will be intercepted at LaPush, Westport and Ilwaco — are encouraging. Hymer said 93,000 summer chinook are expected at the mouth of the river, with a number of them at the upper end of the range. The forecast for the fall chinook run is also good, at just under one million fish. That’s not too far under last year’s run of 1.3 million fall kings.
All the coastal marine areas, including Neah Bay and Sekiu, open July 1. Ilwaco regulations call for a catch quota of 18,900 hatchery coho and 10,200 chinook, and a bag limit of one salmon, wild or hatchery; Westport regs allow no coho, but the one-chinook bag limit can be wild or hatchery; at La Push, it’s 2,000 chinook, release all coho, bag limit two chinook, wild or hatchery; at Neah Bay, it’s a quota of 6,200 kings, no coho, two-fish bag limit, wild or hatchery; and at Sekiu, no coho and hatchery chinook only.
Baker Lake sockeye
The Skagit River was scheduled to open June 16 through July 15 for sockeye, from Mount Vernon to Gilligan Creek, with a set quota, and a three-fish limit, but even if NOAA approval is granted Friday and announced immediately, we already have lost a week of the river fishery. Could the season be extended?
“That would probably depend on the run timing,” said state biologist Brett Barkdull in La Conner. “We have to balance the numbers between the state/tribal split, natural and artificial spawning escapement, the probable river and Baker Lake harvests, and other factors. Sockeye tend to come in from saltwater in one big bunch, which makes it even harder to allot fish for several different uses.”
The Baker Lake season, scheduled for July 10-Sept. 7 with a five-fish limit, probably is not on the bubble. The run forecast is also a good one — 55,000 fish compared to last year’s total trap count of 32,000 fish. Splitting the forecast with the tribes leaves 27,500; subtracting 1,500 fish for natural spawning in the lake leaves 26,000; subtracting 7,818 for hatchery and spawning beach operations leaves a little over 18,000 sockeye for sport harvest.
As of June 21, a total of 205 fish had been trapped, and 95 transferred to Baker Lake.
Crab
Puget Sound and Strait of Juan de Fuca recreational crabbing is already underway in some marine areas and most of the others open July 1. All areas are closed Tuesdays and Wednesdays:
Marine Area 13 (south Sound), June 2-Sept. 5; areas 4, 5, and 12 (Neah Bay, Sekiu and Hood Canal), June 16-Sept 5; a portion of Area 9, from the Hood Canal bridge to the Foulweather Bluff-Olele Point line, June 16-Sept. 5; areas 6 (east Strait), 8-1 (Deception Pass), 8-2 (Everett), 9 (Admiralty Inlet), 10 (Seattle) and 11 (Tacoma), July 1-Sept. 5; Area 7 South (San Juan Islands), July 15-Sept. 30; and Area 7 North (Gulf of Georgia), Aug. 13-Sept 30.
Shellfish manager Don Velasquez at the Department of Fish and Wildlife’s Mill Creek office said the 2016 season should be a good one, but probably down a little from last year’s Puget Sound record-setter.
“The excellent fishery last year was driven by areas 8-1, 8-2, 9 and 10,” Velasquez said, “and our test fishing results there have been strong again.”
He said 8-1 and 8-2 might be down a little, but not by much, and probably better than Area 9.
The most prevalent enforcement problem almost certainly will be fishers who don’t log their crab immediately upon putting them in the boat, he said.
Best bass lakes
Bassmaster Magazine has announced its annual list of the 100 best bass fishing lakes in the country, and No. 1 is (again) Toledo Bend Reservoir on the Texas-Louisiana border.
The top four lakes in the Western Region were all in California, but No. 8 was Lake Washington; No. 12, Potholes Reservoir; No. 17, Banks Lake; and No. 18, the Columbia River from Portland upstream to McNary Dam.
Placing ahead of Washington’s best in the Western Region were Idaho’s Dworshak Reservoir at No. 5 and Oregon’s Tenmile Lake at No. 7.
For more outdoor news, read Wayne Kruse’s blog at www.heraldnet.com/huntingandfishing.
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