Puget Sound Crab Season 2023

Hood Canal Crabbing can product some nice hauls of crab
Hood Canal Crabbing can product some nice hauls of crab

The details of our Puget Sound summer crabbing season have finally been announced! Most of it gets underway on July 1st, with some of the usual areas delaying their openers out of concern for soft shells continuing through July.

This blog post will share the season details and connect you to helpful resources for anyone just starting out, or if you need a refresher / new gear for this crabbing season.

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Halibut Fishing Trip May 2023

Me holding 47 lb halibut up with Gaff

My friends and I recently had an absolutely epic halibut fishing trip out of Westport, WA. You know, the “early limits” back at the dock first kind of trip that you and your buddies will talk about for a long time.

This blog post breaks down everything we did in hopes that it might help someone repeat a similar level of success. And that includes me! When I write this stuff down, I like to go back and study it before the next trip so I can repeat what I did.

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2023 Puget Sound Spot Shrimp Season

puget sound shrimp coming up

We are only a few weeks away from the 2023 Puget Sound Shrimping season! Now is the time to review season details, and take inventory of your pots, your riggings, and of course your bait.

Do you remember where you left off last year? Do you remember the valuable lessons you learned? Now is the time to review, head to the store if you need to, and come up with a plan to make your 2023 season a big success.

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Puget Sound Lingcod Fishing Season 2023

Lingcod teeth

Puget Sound Lingcod season marks that period in the fishing calendar where we can consistently plan to be on the water and know something will be open to angle for until things die down into the fall.

Inside this blog post you will get a reminder of the season information from WDFW, historical catch timing graphs that indicate the best times and places to fish for lingcod around Puget Sound, and of course date creel information that indicates how many lingcod are being caught in Marine Areas 5-13 in and around the Puget Sound.

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What happened to our 2023 Skykomish Summer Chinook Fishery?

snoqualmie_river-fall_chinook-wild_forecast_2023

As many of you are now aware, we’ve lost most of the fishing opportunities in 2023 to pursue Skykomish summer chinook and summer steelhead returning in the same timeframe.

The Skykomish summer chinook fishery is an incredible opportunity close to home for many folks in the north Puget Sound region represents a massive amount of business for local guides and the surrounding businesses and fills a hole in the fishing calendar.

How did this happen? And what does it mean for the future of this fishery? Let’s explore together using the data available from the North of Falcon Process and the Management Plan for Puget Sound Chinook agreed upon between the Tribes and WDFW.

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Puget Sound Halibut Fishing 2023

Nice shallow water halibut
Nice shallow water halibut

Halibut fishing opens up in April of 2023 for the waters considered “Puget Sound”, which includes the Strait. The Washington Coast will open in May for halibut fishing. This blog post is all about sharing the previous year’s catch data and the current year’s effort and catch data to help you hone in on “where and when to fish” for halibut in 2023 for Marine Areas 5-9.

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Pink Salmon Run 2023

Duwamish waterway fishing for Pinks
Duwamish waterway fishing for Pinks

Like the first gleam of dawn on the Duwamish industrial waterway is the glimpse of summertime fun we just received from WDFW via the North of Falcon Salmon season setting process.

That’s right folks, it’s time to board the hype train to humpy town! Pink Salmon season 2023 is upon us!

Let’s get the full rundown of the pink salmon um…run, in 2023.

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Puget Sound Salmon Forecasts 2023

Nice chinook salmon caught around Sekiu

This is the big forecast news dump we’ve been waiting for! There’s so much information on what we can expect with regards to salmon fishing in Puget Sound revealed at the beginning of North of Falcon with these forecasts now released.

There was also some framing of the kind of salmon seasons we can expect. I will unpack all of it for you in this blog post, including details about the nearly 4 million pinks (humpies) expected to return to Puget Sound in 2023!

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