Finally, we have a smelt fishery announcement! I know we’ve had a few in the past several years, but they haven’t been quite the same opportunity as what’s expected this Thursday.
If you’ve tried to plunk for steelhead below the Toutle River confluence with the Cowlitz River, you know that the smelt are in and plentiful.
Let’s review what you need to know to be successful on this smelt fishery opener.
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.
Before the spring and summer salmon seasons get announced on the Columbia we get to review the final tally of the 2023 returns and the 2024 forecast.
We’ve finally received the much anticipated 2023-2024 Coastal Steelhead season announcement. Or at least we’ve heard the first part of the season…
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.
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.
Sad news and a sad day for Puget Sound chinook anglers who now have all the interior middle Puget Sound marine areas closed for chinook harvest.
FISHING RULE CHANGE
Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife
July 13, 2023
Salmon fishing suspended in Marine Area 11 (Tacoma-Vashon Island)
You might be thinking this is a ridiculous blog post just from the title, but it’s actually a really important question to think through with a full understanding of how our fishing and catching data is used by WDFW. By attempting to apply logic and reason to this question we will hopefully illuminate some things we may not fully understand.
June 13, 2023
Salmon fishing suspended in Marine Area 11
Action: Closes to all salmon fishing.