Places to fish, hunt or forage
I finally got the boat back out on the water to try and get some crab on the last day of the season in Marine area 8-2 near Everett, WA.
Usually, this season remains open through December, but unfortunately this year WDFW announced the closure on Oct 24th. Why did it close early and how did we do?
River fishing for Coho translates to some of the best fishing experiences in the Pacific Northwest. We are talking multiple fish days, lots of hookups, and fast action combined with the amazing beauty of the changing seasons.
As the primary saltwater season in Puget Sound winds down and we don’t have an abundance of Blackmouth opportunities, the focus shifts to the rivers and in particular to the coastal rivers of the Olympic Peninsula.
Except for a short stretch of 3 days, the Puyallup and Carbon Rivers have stayed in low visibility coloration for all of September. The fish are most definitely in and being caught consistently all over the river system.
Salmon for Soldiers is an amazing event where the recreational boating and sport fishing community get an opportunity to give back to the veterans who have proudly served our country. I highly recommend it for anyone with a boat and a desire to give back.
I also highly recommend it for any active duty, returning from deployment, or retired military. Words on a blog post and a few pictures do not adequately describe the range of emotions and the amount of positivity generated at this gathering.
Did summer ever actually happen? Technically, September is still summer, but it sure feels like we are now in the fall. It doesn’t help that all the stores have Halloween stuff out, the autumn beers are on the shelves and the salmon are in the rivers! Let’s cover what the options are in September to get into some salmon.
So you heard the forecasts at the start of the year in the North of Falcon process, Pink Salmon fishing was supposed to be ho-hum this year. I think we can safely conclude that the prediction was a tad conservative.
The salt and now the rivers are stuffed with Pinks. If you read this blog early in the year, you know we predicted this to be the case.
This years run of spring kings on the Columbia River had me seriously questioning whether it was worth the time and effort to drive 2.5 hours, fish a new part of the river and chase a run predicted to be worse than most recent previous years. Here’s the deal though: One, just one Columbia River Springer is enough to make it worth the effort. The meat quality is better than any other salmon or steelhead (fish?) you can angle for in the Pacific Northwest.
My brother-in-law was in town and I wanted to give him a taste of the PNW Best Life, so why not go crabbing in December, right? The weather was an enjoyable 42 degrees, and the commercial pots had been out of the water for a few days which means there should be plenty of keeper Dungeness Crab to be had.
Sometimes in life, you need to learn something the hard way. You can do all the research and get expert coaching, but sometimes, you just need to screw it up and learn that a particular impulse or notion leads to bad outcomes.