South Sound / Olympic Peninsula

Aligned with WDFW Region 5 South Puget Sound and Olympic Peninsula WA including Districts 11, 15, 16 and 17. And Counties: Pierce, Thurston, Jefferson, Kitsap, Mason, Clallam, Grays Harbor and Pacific

Will we get to fish for Washington Coast Steelhead in 2024-2025

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Steelhead square pic

The short answer to this question is that it’s highly likely we WILL get to fish for winter steelhead on a majority of coastal rivers in Washington this 2024-2025 season.

The primary reason for that is the much better wild steelhead forecasts that WDFW unveiled earlier in October for rivers up and down the coast. Finally! Some good news on this front after several years of incredibly disappointing forecasts and perplexing fishing seasons that limited even the hatchery fishing opportunities in places with little to no impact on wild steelhead.

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Fall Fishing, Hunting and Foraging Opportunities are Incredible in 2024

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Ray holding a nice coho buck from the coast

We are almost to the halfway point of fall 2024, and oh baby, has it been a good one! Fall is my favorite season, largely due to the incredible variety and quantity of opportunities to harvest wonderful food from the land through fishing, hunting, and foraging.

The blog post covers some of my recent highlights fishing, hunting, and foraging, and tries to point you in the right direction if you want to pursue some of these same opportunities.

Let’s get to it!

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Puget Sound Salmon Forecasts 2024

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Couple of beefy puget sound chinook

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.

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Reviewing 2023 Puget Sound Salmon Seasons and Preparing for 2024

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marine area 10 chinook king salmon near seattle aug 2023

I recently attended the Puget Sound Salmon Town Hall earlier this week where we reviewed the 2023 Puget Sound Salmon Seasons, examined the weather and environmental conditions, introduced the 2024 North of Falcon schedule and WDFW attempted to answer questions from a frustrated public.

In this blog post I highlight the parts I think you should be aware of.

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Epic PNW Adventure for Salmon and Mushrooms October 2023

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I recently got back from a coastal river, where my plan was to take part in three epic PNW harvest opportunities, all within a short distance of each other. Where else can all three of these activities be done outside the Pacific Northwest? I love that we can plan a day like within a few … Read more

Washington Coastal Steelhead update after Oct 2023 Townhall

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Bright chrome coastal steelhead

Last night was the first of several meetings that included the public, on the topic of the 2023-2024 winter steelhead season for the coastal rivers of Washington. In this blog post I will share what I learned and my overall impression of things.

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Are you ready for more Washington Steelhead drama prior to the 2023-2024 season?

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Steelhead breaking surface

Hopefully you are right in the middle of a great run of salmon on your local river as chinook, pinks and coho all steam into streams all over Western Washington.

While, summer seems to have just ended (emphatically) with the latest edition of the atmospheric river arriving this weekend and continuing into next week, it’s never too early to start previewing what we can expect during the 2023-2024 winter steelhead season.

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It’s river chinook time and that means bobber downs!

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River chinook august 2023 caught on float and eggs

Maybe you’ve already got a full freezer from a successful season of saltwater salmon fishing, or maybe this is your first opportunity to wet a line for chinook. Regardless, angling for chinook in our local or coastal river is my FAVORITE PNW harvest recreation activity and you don’t want to miss out on the fun!

I went out this morning and got my limit in a few hours, so I feel inspired to write about river fishing for Chinook and tell you my story.

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Pink Salmon Beach Fishing August 2023

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Doubled up on pinks on the beach

Fishing for Pink Salmon from the beach can be an incredibly exciting experience! We get to fish for pinks once every two years because of the odd-year return pattern they exhibit.

I don’t know about you, but I’ve been fishing from my boat with downriggers for salmon for almost 2 months now, and though I didn’t have much choice this trip with my boat in the shop getting the autopilot repaired, I was really excited to put my waders on and head down to the local beach.

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