Chances are slim that Puget Sound anglers will be allowed to chase the state’s most popular salmon species beyond this weekend in Marine Area 9, according to longtime sportfishing activist Gary Krein of Everett. Krein said a phone conference Tuesday involving state Department of Fish and Wildlife salmon managers revealed that 75 percent of the hatchery chinook quota in Area 9 (Admiralty Inlet) had been taken by Sunday evening.
Fishing was allowed to continue this week, but another conference was scheduled for Thursday afternoon to again assess the harvest numbers. Krein said a decision whether or not to allow more fishing days probably will have been made by the end of the work day Thursday, and an announcement possibly by Friday. The usual department procedure in a major season change is to allow a day or two for the news to circulate before the hammer comes down.
The announcement will appear first on the agency’s web page, www.wdfw.wa.gov/fishing.
The above applies only to Marine Area 9. Area 10 (Edmonds-Seattle) appears to have a little more quota remaining, and closure seems not to be imminent at this point, Krein said.
Chinook fishing in Area 9 has been good since the July 16 opener, particularly on Possession Bar, but as usually happens, it dropped off significantly after the first weekend. State creel checks at the Port of Everett ramp Saturday showed 418 anglers with 33 kings, and on Sunday, 357 with 44 fish. Not as good as the first three days of the fishery, but not bad, either.
For comparison, checks at Olson’s in Sekiu on Saturday tallied 89 fishermen with 40 chinook, and at the Ediz Hook ramp in Port Angeles on Sunday, 76 anglers with 22 fish.
Krein said the fish averaged 6 to 12 pounds and were willing to eat green/white spoons or mother of pearl Tomic plugs worked at 120 to 140 feet, above bait schools and in varying water depths. He said he prefers the west side of the bar on an incoming tide and the east side on the ebb.
Baker Lake sockeye
It hasn’t been a bust exactly, but certainly not the numbers expected, either. The Baker Lake sockeye run, that is, which has been downgraded by state biologists from a preseason forecast of 55,000 fish to an in-season adjusted 40,000. Biologist Brett Barkdull said the total number of sockeye trapped at Lower Baker Dam through July 25 was about 20,600 fish, and that he feels the chance of meeting or beating last year’s total of 32,000 is “close to zero.”
Fishing has been “less than super-fast,” he said. “The knowledgeable anglers are catching fish, but the casual guys, not so much.”
The last creel check on the lake showed an average of about a half-fish per rod, he said, and with fish being utilized for spawning, it’s been a couple of weeks since harvestable sockeye were transferred from the trap to the lake.
“This year’s fish were about seven days early,” Barkdull said, “so for a while it looked pretty good. Now it’s obvious that’s not the case, and who knows why?”
Still, there’s fishing to be done. Some 444 sockeye were trapped Monday and, while that doesn’t match a one-day total in early July of 2,300 fish, quality salmon remain to be caught.
Buoy 10
What some bill as “the most popular salmon fishery on the West Coast” opens Monday on the Columbia River, from the red No. 10 buoy off Ilwaco all the way up to the Oregon/Washington border above McNary Dam. While the peak of the fishery usually falls somewhere around the third week of August, state biologist Joe Hymer in Vancouver said this opener features a good “big” tide that could make for some nice coho action — as it did last year. The silvers will be running 4 to 7-plus pounds, he said, with a limit of two hatchery coho or one chinook and one hatchery coho.
A new regulation twist this year, intended to stretch the fall chinook season through the Labor Day weekend, says that on Sundays and Mondays anglers can retain only hatchery chinook.
Hymer said there are a lot of anchovies in the estuary and humpback whales are following them in — both good signs for salmon fishermen. Start near the lower end at the beginning of the flood, Hymer said, and follow the tide upriver. When the ebb starts, you should be above the Astoria Bridge.
If coho are the quarry, he said, try a diver with herring or anchovy, or a Super Bait packed with canned tuna in oil, also behind a diver. For chinook, later, use a heavy lead worked on the bottom, with a Fish Flash and bait, or a hoochie/spinner blade.
Hymer said the forecast for fall chinook in the Columbia is 960,200 fish, which would be another strong return. While it would be just 74 percent of the 2015 run, it would also be 136 percent of the 10-year average.
The Ilwaco fishery fell off a little last week, according to the state’s coastal salmon manager, Wendy Beeghley, but in a very unusual situation the chinook catch, 0.4 fish per rod, was higher than the coho take, at 0.2 per rod.
A regulation change at Westport, allowing retention of up to two chinook daily, release coho, didn’t appear to make much difference in the recreational catch over the weekend, Beeghley said. The per-person average showed 0.5 chinook, about what it had been. LaPush remained slow and Neah Bay also hit a slow stretch.
Tuna
Ilwaco slowed for albacore and Westport was described as “spotty.”
Beach salmon
Joe Hymer (above) said shore fishermen on the Columbia River North Jetty were just starting to catch mostly coho, hanging bait under a float, or casting Blue Fox spinners. You’ll want to fish the incoming tide and take a long-handled landing net.
Cowlitz River
The Cowlitz remained a pretty good bet for summer steelhead anglers, putting out 32 summer-runs for 59 boat fishermen sampled last week by state creels checkers. Nearly all the fish were taken around the Cowlitz trout hatchery.
Shrimp closure
Marine Area 7-West, the western portion of the San Juan Islands, has closed to recreational shrimping, leaving Marine Areas 4, 5 and 6 as the only areas left open for all shrimp species, including spot shrimp.
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