2020 Salmon seasons have been released as the North of Falcon process concludes. While the biggest headline and disappointment is the loss of most of the winter blackmouth season in 2020-2021, it may only be a one year setback. Summer chinook seasons have a slightly higher quota. Everything kicks off on June 1st with the opening of the Marine Area 10 coho season.

My final update to this post is a link to the 2021 Puget sound salmon season post just released.

Puget Sound Salmon Seasons for 2020

As a disclaimer, always refer to WDFW for the actual season specifics, we will just cover the highlights (and low lights) here.

2020 Puget Sound Summer Salmon Seasons

There are also some highlights in our summer salmon seasons. Kicking it off, we get to fish resident coho again starting June 1st in Marine Area 10. Usually, I’m too busy shrimping and bottom fishing, but I may take part in the fishery this year.

Another potential upside surprise here is that like last year Canada has shutdown most fishing on the western side of Vancouver Island to give the chinook a good chance to make it to the Fraser River.

Many of our Puget Sound bound hatchery fish are caught in this area. With all the COVID-19 related restaurant closures, some of the commercial fisheries may not take as many fish either. The bottom line is that our summer seasons should be really good with plenty of fish around!

Marine Areas 5 (Seiku) and 6 (Port Angeles) – The Strait of Juan de Fuca

These areas will open on July 1st for hatchery chinook and last until August 15th or the quota is reached. You can only retain chinook in MA6 west of Ediz Hook as per the usual.

Hatchery coho will be available August 16th – September 30th

Marine Area 7

Marine Area 7 opens on July 1st as well, but only has a quota of 1541 hatchery chinook. The season closes on July 31st, but may re-open in August if there is sufficient quota left.

Marine Area 8-1 and 8-2

Marine Area 8-1, 8-2 will not open except for bubble fisheries like the Tulalip (opens on June 1st on specific days only)

Marine Area 9

Also, Marine Area 9 and 10 are setup much better for success as compared to 2019. Both are set to open on July 16th for hatchery chinook and be open every day of the week. MA9 closes on August 15th or when the quota is reached. Remember how last year MA9 opened on July 25th with a 4 day opener? There’s also more than 2x the fish in the quota compared to 2019, currently set at 6529 fish compared to just over 3000.

Hatchery coho will be available August 16th – September 30th

Marine Area 10

Hatchery resident coho retention open from June 1st to July 15th

Hatchery chinook retention open from July 16th to August 31st or until the quota of 4149 is reached. The quota was only 3000 in 2019.

Followed by hatchery coho on September 1st – November 16th. Chum can be retained starting September 16th as well.

Marine Area 11

Marine Area 11 will open on July 1st for hatchery chinook and will have a quota of nearly 4200 fish compared to 2800 a year ago.

Marine Area 12

Marine Area 12 / Hood Canal south of Ayock Point opens on July 1st – Sep 30th and allows retention of hatchery chinook 20″ or larger.

Marine Area 13

Marine Area 13 will remain open all year long for hatchery chinook retention with a min size of 20″

Where am I excited to fish in the Puget Sound in 2020?

Late May (assuming we are fishing by then), you have to go south of the Narrows in Marine Area 13 and hit Point Fosdick for early returning hatchery chinook. They will stage throughout June as well. MA 13 stays open year around usually. For a full review of puget sound salmon fishing, head to our page dedicated to this topic.

I’m excited to fish for the resident coho in Marine Area 10 when that opens. I also plan to spend more time on the water in Marine Area’s 9 and 10. I spent too many days grinding it out in Marine Area 11 in 2019 just because it was closer to home. The fish are so much more metabolically active and thereby easier to catch further north.

There will also be another trip to Seiku and Port Angeles if I can swing it.

As we get into August, Marine Area 13 will be my goto as the fishing can be ridiculous once fish start stacking off of the mouth of the Nisqually.

I’m working on my fishing calendar for 2020 and it will include a trip up north (back to Port Hardy) to provide a great salmon fishing experience.

I will keep my guide to Puget Sound salmon fishing updated with all the lessons learned along the way.

2020-2021 Puget Sound Winter Blackmouth Fishing

We really have to start here as this is what most of the buzz and angst is about. There will still be a winter blackmouth season in Marine Area 5 (Seiku). Also, the popular Jeff Head / Kingston fishery aka Marine Area 10 is still supposed to be available on January 1st 2021.

Winter Blackmouth fishing in Marine Area 7, 8-1, 8-2, 9 and 6 have all been lost during this process. I’ve seen several accounts that the co-managers set out to get these taken away from the sportsman at the outset of the North of Falcon process. I’ve seen a lot of sportsman anger directed at the tribes and WDFW for allowing it to happen.

What everyone needs to realize is that the path forward here is not to further strain the relationship between the recreational fisherman and the tribes. I’ve seen this happen time and again, it only further hampers our ability to get what we want.

WDFW is also not the enemy here, although it’s easy to direct anger their way as it seems like they do not advocate for us. Throwing in the towel, not buying a license and giving up is not the path forward here.

The real enemy here is low salmon abundance due to predation, ocean conditions and habitat loss. There is room for us to play our cards better than what resulted from this most recent season setting process, but the hand we were dealt is still a crappy one.

Puget Sound Salmon Forecasts for 2020

WDFW Released their forecast numbers for salmon all throughout Puget Sound, Coast and the Columbia River on Feb 28th. Here are the details being reported:

First of all, it’s important to understand that much of the current season setting process has restriction for puget sound chinook based on concerns of ESA listed wild chinook in two rivers particularly: The Stillaguamish and Mid-Hood Canal streams.

The Stillaguamish is expected to have 901 chinook salmon return which is up from 888 in 2019, but down from 1600 in 2018.

Mid-Hood Canal chinook are expected to be just 39 returning salmon compared to 286 in 2019.

2020 Summer / Fall Chinook for the Puget Sound

2020 is expected to see 256,821 king salmon return compared to 246,837 in 2019 and 255,219 in 2018. There may be shifting of returns between certain rivers, but overall you should expect similar fishing in places like Marine Area 6 and 9 where you can intercept most of the Puget Sound salmon.

2020 Fall Coho for the Puget Sound

2020 is expected to see 523,498 coho salmon return compared to 708,521 in 2019 and 557,149 in 2018. I thought 2018 was a very good year compared to 2019, but it all depends on where you fish I guess.

Perhaps these fish will be a bit bigger on average and disperse around Puget Sound more quickly without having to compete with 1 million pinks this year.

The coast is also expected to be down slightly from 400k in 2019 to 277k in 2020. Still, this is slightly better than 2018’s return of 271k.

2020 Fall Chum for Puget Sound and Hood Canal

The return in 2020 is expected to be down slightly at 874,307 from 1,035,835 in 2019. The recent 10-year average is 1.5 million, so this is still a down year. Hood Canal will see a drop from 518,645 in 2019 to 471,810 in 2020. Puget Sound will see an increase from 263,171 in 2019 to 309,573 in 2020. Perhaps that means my Marine Area 13 chum quest will fair bit better this year!

2020 Sockeye returns

The 2020 Sockeye forecast for the Columbia River looks promising at 244k, up from 93k in 2019. In particular, I’m interested in Lake Wenatchee return forecast of 39,400, if that allows for a season over there. I would love to take my family camping and fishing for sockeye near Wenatchee.

Is it even news that Lake Washington is expected to struggle again?

My take / Summary:

We will see similar seasons as in 2019 for most fisheries. I could also see more aggressive restrictions being put in place for areas 8-1, 8-2 and 12 based on continuing to struggle chinook runs there.

In terms of Coho, there may be even tighter restrictions in 8-1, 8-2 and 9 to protect the Snonomish wild coho. Hopefully the carnage of lost opportunity stops for Marine Area 7, but that could depend a lot on how both the US and Canada decide to deal with the SRKW situation (deal with the predators!). There’s a lot more details to come here still, but the good news is that it looks like the Puget Sound salmon returns are finally starting to stabilize from recent years warm ocean conditions. Perhaps we can expect 2021 and beyond to be bounce back years?

Meeting calendar for the 2020 season setting process

• Feb 28 – WDFW unveils 2020 salmon forecasts to the public – The location of the meeting will be here: DSHS Building 2 Auditorium, 1115 Washington Street S.E. in Olympia. From 9:30am – 12pm. Should I go?!? DONE
• Mar 16 – Mar 30 – North of Falcon and Pacific Fisheries Management Council meetings – now happening remotely, but still on track.
• April 5 – Apr 11 – Final salmon seasons set

Evaluating the 2019 Puget Sound Salmon Returns

The 2019 Puget Sound Season for summer chinook ended up being a little better than expected despite the late opening of Marine Area 9 and 10. The Coho Season performed far worse than expected and resulted in limit reductions along with closures in certain rivers to ensure escapement goals were reached. The big bright spot was the better than expected Pink Salmon returns to rivers like the Puyallup which provided significant opportunities to intercept fish throughout puget sound.

I predicted the much better return of pinks, but I didn’t anticipate the coho season being off so much. The fish were really only caught with consistent success in Marine Area 10 near Edmunds.

Puget Sound Winter Blackmouth Seasons for 2020

January 1st, new years day, Marine Area 10 and 11 opened up for winter blackmouth. When it comes to blackmouth it’s all about the bait. Typically, you will find blackmouth down deep, near the sea floor, as they are feeding on candlefish and other prey.

However in several places there will be an abundance of herring as well that may require you bring your downriggers up to more mid-column, just above the the bait to be effective. In 2019, we ground through the quota extremely quickly with the abundance of bait near Kingston combined with very good weather days in the first few weeks. Checkout our page dedicated to blackmouth fishing in the Puget Sound.

March 1st opened up the rest of the Strait with Marine Area 5 and 6 becoming a viable opportunity for not only blackmouth, but potentially returning Puget Sound springers as well.