Marine Area 9 has some of the best fishing Puget Sound has to offer. From Foulweather Bluff to Port Townsend down through the various spots throughout Admiralty Inlet, the famous Point No Point, the more than famous Possession Bar, and then finally the Edmunds area can be described endlessly with all the fishing possibilities they have on offer.
Below is a map from WDFW’s Marine Area definitions to shows you where Marine Area 9 sits within Puget Sound:
Marine Area 9 Salmon Fishing 2025
Marine Area 9, Admiralty Inlet, is best known for its salmon fishing, though lingcod’s rise in popularity matched with the decline of salmon fishing opportunity, is offering some competition.
Most notable of salmon fishing within Marine Area 9 is fishing for chinook salmon. So much so that we’ve provided a dedicated page to the topic here: Marine Area 9 Chinook Salmon Fishing.
The opportunity in recent years to fish for chinook salmon in Marine Area 9 has been quite limited due to the impacts on natural origin chinook stocks in Northern Puget Sound rivers and the impact/quota allocation process preferring to allocate impacts to fishing (mostly commercial) in Canada and the Washington Coastal fisheries. We tend to get only a few days, even if chinook forecasts are good.
The backbone of salmon fishing opportunity in Marine Area 9 is the coho salmon fishing season. These good-eating, aggressive biting salmon charge their way through Admiralty Inlet, often pouring over Possession Bar and Point No Point by the thousands in late August and early September.
Even in July and early August, you will find quite a few coho in the usual areas. The salmon fishing experience on the west end of Possession can be legendary on the right tide in late July, with both coho and chinook making up the catch.
In 2025, we will also get a run of pink salmon, which is going to add another level of insanity to the fishing mix in late July, early-mid August.
A lot of salmon fishing in Marine Area 9 and saltwater locations, in general, is done with downriggers. I’ve written an extensive guide to fishing for salmon with downriggers and also posted a how-to video for beginners to help you get started:
What is the forecast for Salmon in Marine Area 9 in 2025?
One of the great advantages of fishing for salmon in Marine Area 9, is that most of the runs have to travel through some part of these waters to get where they are going. That means fishing can be incredible when there’s a season open and decent runs of salmon.
This section is to take a look at those run sizes based on what we know from the North of Falcon process in 2025.
Chinook salmon fishing is expected to be as good as it can possibly be in recent years. Expect minimal days and fast action with a thousand of your closest boating buddies.
Pink fishing was great in 2023…now imagine 2x more pinks. Will you be able to hook anything but pinks in mid-August in Area 9?
Look for coho fishing to be as good as it’s been the last few years.
When is the best time to fish for Coho Salmon in Marine Area 9 / Admiralty Inlet?
Take a look at the below graph, which is based on 6 years of recent coho fishing dockside creel reports and posted on WDFW’s website:
Catch rates really start to climb in late August and into September, approaching 1 fish per rod by late September. As soon as it opens to chinook fishing, though, you can expect to find some coho around.
Recent Coho Salmon Fishing Reports from Marine Area 9 / Admiralty Inlet
Even better than a dubiously provided fishing report of questionable accuracy, I will show you the actual data from the dockside creel samples WDFW collects and posts nightly below.
Don’t expect to see anything here until the season is actually open, which is typically August-September (with some July dates sprinkled in when Chinook is open).
When is the best time to fish for Pink Salmon in Marine Area 9 / Admiralty Inlet?
Take a look at the graph below, which is based on 6 years of recent pink fishing dockside creel reports and posted on WDFW’s website:
Catch rates really start to climb in early August and then tail off rapidly in September as the Pinks charge into the rivers. Catch rate approaches 1 fish per rod by the middle of August, but I can guarantee you more fish are being caught than that, as many people (snobs!) just release pinks. You will have a hard time hooking anything but pinks at the peak of the run!
Recent Pink Salmon Fishing Reports from Marine Area 9 / Admiralty Inlet
Marine Area 9 / Admiralty Inlet / Possession Lingcod Fishing
Salmon seasons are not what they used to be, but lingcod fishing in Puget Sound is better than ever! I don’t generally take part in this, as it only takes me an additional half an hour to get to Westport vs a boat launch in Marine Area 9, but this fishery has really risen in popularity and I want to provide the creel data graph resource I have been providing for other areas and species.
Possession Bar is the primary place where people target lingcod in Marine Area 9, but if you go further north up Admiralty Inlet there are a variety or rocky areas near Bays and Points that you can find with your Garmin Boating App to target them.
People primarily use live sand dabs to target them, but artificial swim baits and jigs like Lancer’s can work as well.
Here’s what the graphs are saying about when the peak catch is for lingcod in Marine Area 9:
I’ve heard some people say that the first week and the last week are usually the best of the season, but the data seems to indicate it can be pretty steady for the duration of the season. What else are you gonna do with your time? You might as well get out there and give it a shot!
But are people catching lingcod right now in Marine Area 9? What do the recent reports say? I’m glad you asked!
That’s about 1 lingcod for every 3 rods at the beginning of the 2025 season, which, if you consider the previous graph, is right on par to slightly better than the average.
Does anyone catch halibut in Marine Area 9 / Admiralty Inlet?
Let’s see what our database says about this!
It looks like a few fish (very few!) do get caught, but on average your chances are better going someplace else!
Are there any recent catches of Halibut in Marine Area 9?
If you look closely, you can see that people did actually catch halibut in Marine Area 9 this year when it opened in early April!
Staying safe while fishing out of Marine Area 9
The main thing to watch out for in Marine Area 9 is wind, since there isn’t swell (unless you count container ship bow waves!).
Depending on where you are, different wind directions are more or less problematic. The distinction comes down to fetch, which is a concept you can read about in the link below.
I’ve written a page on marine weather safety that’s extensive and one of the best references I’ve found that’s free on the internet, which attempts to explain many of the concepts you need to understand when fishing big water, which Marine Area 9 can absolutely feel like in the wrong weather scenario.
The other thing that must be considered is the way that Possession Bar can actually act like a river bar. If you get the wrong combination of wind opposing tidal currents and try to exit the bar to the west or east, you can expect some big waves to contend with. Exiting to the south is usually safer, given the more gradual slope.
Tides / Marine Forecast for Admiralty Inlet
Please use caution regarding the below information as this feature is new and may encounter bugs that result in inaccurate or stale information being displayed.
Tides are from Bush Point, Whidbey Island, around the middle of Admiralty Inlet.
Marine Forecast for Puget Sound and Hood Canal as of 1 days and 1 hours ago
Forecast published on 05/05/2025 02:44:00 Synopsis: SYNOPSIS FOR THE NORTHERN AND CENTRAL WASHINGTON COASTAL AND INLAND WATERS...West to northwest flow over the coastal waters today as high pressure remains overhead. Benign seas are expected through midweek, when the next frontal system will move through for elevated winds and seas.
You should always check the forecast on the NWS Marine Forecast Page, the text below is added for your convenience:
Question about how to read a marine forecast to stay safe? Check out our comprehensive guide on Marine Weather Safety here
Yesterday’s last tide
| Tide Time (24H) | Predicted (ft) | High-Low | Tide Delta | Avg ft / hour |
| 18:08 | 1.19 ft | L | NA | NA |
05/06/2025 Tue
Daytime Marine Forecast: N wind around 5 kt. Waves around 2 ft or less.| Tide Time (24H) | Predicted (ft) | High-Low | Tide Delta | Avg ft / hour |
| 01:46 | 9.24 ft | H | 8.05 | 1.05 |
| 09:07 | 4.37 ft | L | -4.87 | -0.66 |
| 12:49 | 5.63 ft | H | 1.26 | 0.34 |
| 19:11 | 2.22 ft | L | -3.41 | -0.54 |
05/07/2025 Wed
Daytime Marine Forecast: S wind around 5 kt, veering to SW in the afternoon. Waves around 2 ft or less.| Tide Time (24H) | Predicted (ft) | High-Low | Tide Delta | Avg ft / hour |
| 02:18 | 9.07 ft | H | 6.85 | 0.96 |
| 09:34 | 3.31 ft | L | -5.76 | -0.79 |
| 14:38 | 5.97 ft | H | 2.66 | 0.53 |
| 20:08 | 3.20 ft | L | -2.77 | -0.50 |
05/08/2025 Thu
Daytime Marine Forecast: S wind around 5 kt, veering to N in the afternoon. Waves around 2 ft or less.| Tide Time (24H) | Predicted (ft) | High-Low | Tide Delta | Avg ft / hour |
| 02:41 | 8.87 ft | H | 5.67 | 0.87 |
| 09:54 | 2.26 ft | L | -6.61 | -0.92 |
| 15:55 | 6.62 ft | H | 4.36 | 0.72 |
| 20:59 | 4.15 ft | L | -2.47 | -0.49 |
05/09/2025 Fri
Daytime Marine Forecast: N wind around 5 kt. Waves around 2 ft or less.| Tide Time (24H) | Predicted (ft) | High-Low | Tide Delta | Avg ft / hour |
| 02:56 | 8.69 ft | H | 4.54 | 0.76 |
| 10:12 | 1.24 ft | L | -7.45 | -1.03 |
| 16:54 | 7.33 ft | H | 6.09 | 0.91 |
| 21:45 | 5.04 ft | L | -2.29 | -0.47 |
05/10/2025 Sat
| Tide Time (24H) | Predicted (ft) | High-Low | Tide Delta | Avg ft / hour |
| 03:07 | 8.58 ft | H | 3.54 | 0.66 |
| 10:33 | 0.30 ft | L | -8.28 | -1.11 |
| 17:44 | 7.99 ft | H | 7.69 | 1.07 |
| 22:29 | 5.83 ft | L | -2.16 | -0.45 |
05/11/2025 Sun
| Tide Time (24H) | Predicted (ft) | High-Low | Tide Delta | Avg ft / hour |
| 03:22 | 8.51 ft | H | 2.68 | 0.55 |
Looking for more tides? Checkout the NOAA Tide Prediction page for Bush Point, Whidbey Island here
Marine Area 9 Admiralty Inlet / Possession Fishing Regulations
Here’s a link to WDFW’s marine area rules and definitions.
Marine Area permanent regulations are updated in late June / early July of the year as salmon seasons are finalized, and you can access the current Marine Area 9 regulations here.
Emergency Fishing Regulations for Marine Area 9 Admiralty Inlet / Possession
The above permanent regulations for Marine Area 9 are subject to change at any time and without being updated on this blog. One must consult the WDFW Emergency Regulations before any trips to ensure they are in full compliance with state laws regulating fisheries.
