The rains have come, fall has fell, it’s time to catch winter blackmouth and we’re pleased as … well, almost time to catch winter blackmouth. All of Puget Sound which isn’t currently open becomes legal water on Saturday morning, two fish limit, retain only one chinook. The season is open through the month of November, when all Puget Sound salmon angling closes, period, so prime time fishing days are limited.

Area 10 reopens Dec. 16 for one salmon; areas 8-1 and 9 reopen Feb. 1 for one salmon; and Area 8-2 reopens Feb. 14 , with a one-salmon limit.

The prospects for this weekend look good, according to Gary Krein, owner/skipper of All Star Charters in Everett (425-252-4188). On either coho trips or trips specifically prospecting for chinook, Krein has hit blackmouth in at least three local hot spots during the past week.

“We’ve hooked and released some really nice fish on both the north and south ends of Hat Island, at Possession Bar, and at Point No Point over the last few days,” Krein says. “Most have been the usual early-winter fish of 5 to 7 or 8 pounds, but we hit a 15-pounder Tuesday on the north side of Hat, and a 13- or 14-pounder on Possession over the weekend.”

Assuming no major southwesterly blowing on Saturday morning, Krein plans to be on the west side of Possession Bar.

“That side fishes well on an incoming tide,” he says, “and that’s what we’ll have all morning, until almost noon.”

Krein will probably be fishing Coyote spoons, behind a flasher on one or two rods, and alone on another. He likes the relatively new black and white “cop car,” or “super trooper” pattern, which caught a lot of fish for him last season, or the old reliable two-tone green and glow white model. He’ll be working within 10 or 20 feet of bottom, in 100 to 200 feet of water, along the serpentine west edge of the bar.

It’s crucial, Krein says, to stay close to the bottom, particularly with winter fish.

Local rivers: Most of our major river systems have dropped back into fishing shape, or a reasonable facsimile thereof, and predicted cooler, drier weather this week should produce some really decent action by the weekend. Jim Strege at Triangle Beverage in Snohomish (360-568-4276) said plunkers on the Snohomish bars are taking a mix of coho and chums, the silvers on a Spin N Glo/egg cluster combo, and the chums on a big, purple Spin N Glo decorated with sand shrimp.

At Holiday Market in Burlington, Pete Hopley says the Skagit is also fishable, barely, and that plunkers on Young’s Bar at Mount Vernon, and Gardner Bar, between Burlington and Sedro Woolley, are taking a mix of about 40 percent silvers and 60 percent chums.

“It could be good by this weekend,” he says, “if we get just a little more visibility.”

Gardner Bar is both a good boat launch spot and a popular beach fishery.

“The bar itself is above the launch,” Hopley says. “Below it is a long stretch of deeper water along a rock riprap where guys were taking a bunch of silvers before the high water. But you can catch fish going both ways from the launch, depending on conditions.”

Heading east from Burlington, toward Sedro Woolley on Highway 20, keep an eye out for Gardner Road, on the right.

Hopley also said customers are doing at least fairly well casting Buzz Bombs and Krocodile spoons for coho and chums at North Beach, on the northwest corner of Whidbey Island, accessed through Deception Pass State Park.

Salmon checks: WDFW creel checks recently included: Everett ramp, Oct. 25-26, 132 anglers with 27 coho, averaging 7 pounds, and 3 chums, 7 to 15 pounds; Anacortes (Washington Park), Oct. 24, 4 anglers with 4 coho and 1 chum; Point No Point beach, Oct. 21, 9 anglers with 2 coho, averaging 7 pounds; Hoodsport shore fishery, Hood Canal, Oct. 25, 54 anglers with 23 chums, averaging 10 pounds; and Kennedy Creek shore fishery, south Sound, Oct. 26, 64 anglers with 33 chums, averaging 7 pounds.

Waterfowl: There aren’t as many ducks on and around north Puget Sound as there have been for the past few years at this point, according to Lora Leschner, state Fish and Wildlife Department management biologist at the Mill Creek office. A recent overflight and water fowl count showed the heavy majority of birds on the northern half of the general area, on Padilla and Samish bays.

“Some of the better duck hunting we’ve noted around here so far this season has been on our relatively new ‘Marietta’ area, just south of Ferndale,” Leschner said. “That’s an addition of several hundred acres with quite a bit of corn left on it. It won’t always be that way, but for now it’s attracting good numbers of ducks.”

It’s walk-in hunting, off the Lummi Island Exit, along the creek which runs from Tenant Lake to saltwater, and the Nooksack River.

Leschner says snow goose hunting is looking very good this fall and winter, with over 35,000 birds already on Port Susan and Skagit bays. Two things to remember: non-toxic shot is now mandatory for all waterfowl hunting, statewide, and for upland birds on any wildlife area which also supports waterfowl; and, Friday is the last day to apply for a snow goose permit if you didn’t have one last year. If you did have one last year, and you turned in your census card and followed all the other rules, you should have a new permit by now. If not, the only option left is to show up in person tomorrow at the Mill Creek office (425-775-1311).

Pheasant: Leschner said pen-raised pheasants weren’t impacted by recent floodwaters on the Skagit and Snoqualmie rivers, and that plants in the Snoqualmie Valley and the Skagit Delta have resumed on a normal schedule.

Eastern Washington pheasant hunting has been best in the southeast corner of the state, where biologists say the ringneck population is the highest it’s been in several years. To supplement wild birds, some 1,600 pen-raised pheasants have been released on 10 sites from the Sherman Creek Wildlife Area in Ferry County, to the Wallula Habitat Management Unit in Walla Walla County. For more information on all release sites, see the “Eastern Washington Pheasant Enhancement Program” information on the WDFW Web site, www.wa.gov/wdfw.