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.
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.