Can you already smell the sweet, foul(but not really) smell of a fresh chinook that just came on board your boat? It’s time to review the Chinook forecasts for 2025 for Puget Sound!
Where will the strongest run of chinook show up in Puget Sound in 2025? What will be the most constraining run that all our seasons will be impacted by? I bet it’s from a river that starts with an S! Keep reading to find out.
Coho Salmon make up the backbone of Puget Sound salmon fishing nearly every year! Fun and easy enough to catch, great table fare and decent fighters make coho the premier salmon species target of recreational anglers.
I’m not going to sugarcoat things, 2025 has some real storm clouds brewing on the Coho fishery that we haven’t seen in a few years and we are not far enough into the process as it stands in early March to see through it all.
I endured 6 hours of North of Falcon zoom meetings to bring you these fresh-off-the-grill salmon forecasts for the year 2024!
Okay, it wasn’t that bad. This forecast “unveiling” was the beginning of the North of Falcon process, wherein the salmon seasons get set and eventually printed prior to the July 1st new regulations year.
If you’re already confused, you are in good company as the entire process of salmon forecast models and the resulting seasons leave a lot of recreational anglers who are only semi-familiar with the process scratching their heads.
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.
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!