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Puget Sound Salmon Seasons in 2024 (LIVE Q&A) plus MORE
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Feb 5, 2025
Walking through our Puget Sound Salmon Seasons in 2024, taking a closer look at the constrained stocks and why there's no season on the Skykomish River this year despite a huge return of hatchery chinook. Talk about halibut, the current Strait and Puget Sound season, as well as the ocean opener. A quick look at shrimping as well. Pages we looked at: https://pnwbestlife.com//puget-sound-salmon-seasons-2024/ https://pnwbestlife.com/puget-sound-straits-halibut-fishing-reports/ https://pnwbestlife.com//2024-puget-sound-spot-shrimp-season/
View Video Transcript
0:03
hey what's up everybody uh doing another live stream here and hoping to talk through our pug
0:11
Town salmon seasons and uh while we wait for uh a few folks to join because I I
0:16
really want to do this live more than just a an edited video because I want your questions and and uh the things
0:24
that you're curious about concerned about uh you know a month ago or two we did the
0:31
the forecast you know we walk through all the the P sound salmon forecast since
0:37
north of Falcon has gone through all the different meeting processes and it has
0:43
concluded and now we have our tentative Seasons they're not yet loged locked in
0:50
but they are uh they're tentatively out there I haven't seen the list of agreed
0:55
Fisheries uh fully signed and agreed to yet but uh that's kind of the next phase
1:02
of the process but wfw did publish the tentative Seasons they're pretty similar
1:08
to last year with a little bit more opportunity on the co-host side uh some
1:14
challenges on the shnook side and you know on the saki side it's a big uh a
1:20
big big boost in terms of forecast numbers again uh you know we're going to
1:26
walk through it all but feel free to drop your questions in the chat and and uh your comments and try to make this a
1:32
little more interactive uh which is why I'm which is why I'm doing it live and and working
1:38
through it there versus trying to make a a video so that I can I can take the things you're interested in and respond
1:44
accordingly I have lots of uh pictures and resources and things available to be
1:50
able to um uh to be able to to respond to what you might be concerned about but while we're waiting for a few folks to
1:56
join uh quick update on me and what I've been doing uh wrapped up the beginning of the month
2:03
fishing for Columbia River Springers which as always is a grind right it's
2:09
always a you know self-imposed torture Fest you
2:15
know the the Springers run was a little bit down compared to last year but you
2:22
know we still got our fish we had our opportunities we would have liked to had a few more but the the I finally got a
2:30
full bite and fight on video so while I'm waiting for a few folks to join I
2:35
will share this this was uh in Clifton Channel near cath liit this is a a
2:40
little clip of our of our trip look at the rod on the
2:46
right focus on the rod on the right you'll see the
2:54
bite dang that was a pair we just mark Mar a couple
3:08
fish no that was the initial bite oh yeah oh yeah oh take take
3:25
it it's funny you know when you're fishing the colubia river have sold the line out F get all my in that
3:33
they're like right at the boat right away right versus downrigger fishing you got to you know get him down from
3:46
wherever you you're like super nervous too because you've been grinding for hours before you finally get your bite
3:53
sometimes so it's like don't screw it up don't screw it up I know that's what Connor was thinking he's the one netting
3:58
here he's like get all that in
4:14
theat oh shoot oh I missed it come on
4:25
con the worst thing is you got those cannibal droppers so so if you if you stab and you miss like you hook that
4:32
cannonball in the net like it's over
4:39
so this time I like put my thumb on the Reel I was like I was like this fish is going in the
4:51
net spring her in the bat feel pretty good pretty good
4:59
a all right that's uh and then one one
5:06
other quick uh uh bit of pre pre- entertainment before I dive into the uh
5:11
the patan salmon Seasons walking through them is uh go ahead if if you haven't
5:17
looked at the channel recently take a look at the uh socks Gadget steel head float trip we did was incredible this is
5:23
just a little one minute trailer [Music]
5:38
[Music]
5:50
on where does what I say where does uh this rank for you in terms of uh all the
5:56
different places you go all the different uh places you fish like where does this rank this is likey
6:05
for steel are easy hard to yep all right go check that out uh if
6:13
you get a chance the sock floating the sock this gadget was I mean that was in
6:19
my opinion I that was a trip of Lifetime we went with guide Carrie Hoffman and just just incredible I know you know we
6:25
won't have uh anything to worry about there till 2025 hopefully be a season uh
6:31
with a with a large enough return of natural origin steel head but definitely check the video out I some of my
6:37
favorite footage I've I've ever captured fishing just absolutely beautiful we got two steel head on the trip that we you
6:44
know released um you one about 12 pounds the other about 18 pounds which is
6:49
pretty pretty awesome uh all right so one other quick note here we the last
6:55
thing we've had for petown salmon season open was seeq Marine area five right and
7:00
it and it closed I think last week and uh you know
7:05
if you're familiar with any of my website my charts and things like that that I do you know here's the here's the
7:12
Krill here's the Krill chart for um see I don't know if you can if
7:18
you could see that it's a little small on the screen here but the blue the blue bar is fish
7:25
Cott the orange line is the angler effort and it's kind of a bummer we
7:31
didn't get a full we didn't get a full season out of CQ you know largely because the test
7:36
fishing boats at wfw runs up there had too many sublegal encounters and they if
7:42
if you looked at my article about Marine area 10 uh closure last year and how they calculate that you can get an idea
7:49
of how how that works and it's unfortunate because you know it's a small sample
7:55
size that determines you know whether a fishery opens or closes and we're working on that with the
8:01
Department different ideas but but unfortunately Marine area 5 closed so the only thing open right now is Marine
8:07
Area 13 until we get to the June
8:13
1st uh June 1st Marine area 10 Co opener
8:18
which is currently in the set of tentatively agreed upon fug s s
8:24
Seasons unless you count the tlea bubble right which usually opens towards the end of May but
8:29
let's kind of get into it so as I said when when uh when I first opened up here we the the the process
8:38
the north of Falcon process largely complete most of the public process is complete although I think you can still
8:44
give them feedback and you know the last live stream I did was a couple months ago
8:50
talking about the the the forecast and kind of where we're at the initial where we're at a lot has happened since then
8:57
the the whole process this is probably the most invested I've been I attended several of the meetings in person many
9:04
conversations with insiders you know I'm kind of I I I'm the chair of the petown
9:10
wreckfish enhancement fund oversight committee uh that uh you know which
9:17
which is largely gives advice to wfw about how to spend the fund that the
9:23
legislator approve for raising Blackmouth 25 years ago to get more people on the water outside of the Prime
9:29
summer salmon Seasons but in in many ways I'm kind of an outsider right
9:34
there's a few folks who are really connected to the process and and and I was working with several of those folks
9:40
throughout throughout the north of Falcon and um one of the things that that I bring to the table in all those
9:46
discussions is you know my background is in is in big Tech you know I had a career in big tech for for 20 years and
9:54
that's how while I'm I'm from Pacific Northwest born and raised here and
9:59
fishing all my life that's something that you know I bring to the table with with being able to look at some of the
10:06
data sets if you looked at if you've paid attention to any of this process it's super technical it's fishery
10:11
science technical but some of the things that in my background definitely translate over so I'm able to help out
10:18
with those insiders working through the political process with the Department uh
10:24
and looking at some of the the massive data sets and things like that so I have a little bit of that lens that I'll that I'll share but the you know on one hand
10:33
there's there's good news right with regards to additional cooh opportunity on the other hand you know the the the
10:40
issue with the whole process throughout the whole the whole time comes down to where we landed with with the with the
10:48
stocks of concern right so I think I shared this a couple months ago it's changed a little bit but this is the uh
10:56
this is kind of the the executive sum that we look at you know a lot of times
11:02
for the natural origin stocks of concern and just looking at where we're at in
11:10
these these um this metric called exploitation rate the er er for short
11:17
and so the primary issues have been the S Rivers right that that's kind of where we've been at for the last few years
11:23
it's been the still guish that's been a problem uh but last year it was the the sish and then and then this year it was
11:31
also the snow homish and so we had a lot of things to work through and we had to cut some of the quota in Marine areas
11:38
just to get our full salmon seasons in in Puget Town largely because of the
11:44
snow Amish a little bit from the still guish so that continued through the whole process and we tried really hard
11:51
throughout the whole process to have a a freshwater season on the skyish you
11:58
know there's a massive amount of Hatchery shinook headed for that skyish
12:04
River and that summer shinook fishery has has been a main stay uh in the pit s for for for for many years and so that
12:12
was super challenging we could not figure out a way to get that freshwater
12:18
you know the the river season open um and in the end we actually ended
12:23
up having quotas similar to last year on some of the Marine areas which the department has mod because of uh
12:31
increased effort other factors that if we have the same quotas we might have slightly shorter season so uh I I think
12:38
there's there's some a little bit of trepidation in a few areas like Marine area 5
12:44
nine uh 10 having to uh not have as much quota as they wanted for uh for having a
12:53
full season but we'll get into that here in a minute here so
12:59
but let's go let's go through this so this is my page on the you know pwb bestlife.com Puget
13:05
Sound Sam Seasons 2024 and we'll kind of walk through it Marine area five not really much
13:13
different from last year right uh you know you still have a July July 1 opener again let me just put this out here
13:19
again uh any questions I'm doing this live so I could take any questions you might have live and give you answers
13:26
drop in the comments later on when this video is uploaded to YouTube I will still you know respond and there as well
13:32
but I'm hoping for for this to be a little more interactive uh additionally what's up
13:38
here are tentative Seasons so the the way the process goes is the the loaf for
13:44
list of agreed Fisheries gets signed off by the department and the co-managers
13:50
before things really become finalized and to my knowledge that hasn't happened yet was supposed to happen last week I'm
13:55
not sure where it's at in the process but I don't think it's happened yet so these are the tentative Seasons that wfw
14:02
has published may may have some slight tweaks from here but this is kind of
14:08
what you can expect so we're going to talk through it because this is most likely where we're gonna where we're going to land so marir 5 other than not
14:16
getting as much shut quota as they hoped will basically look similar to last year
14:22
July 1 opener two fish limit one shinook maximum
14:29
uh another could be a hatri COO just if you're new to fishing Marine 5
14:35
CQ uh early on in this time frame the mark rate on coo is really bad sometimes
14:40
it's um 9 to1 uh unmarked fish sometimes is 21 to one unmarked fish so you know
14:49
that that's something to consider that it really gets better uh you know as the main push of ocean coo comes in and this
14:58
is a season that a lot of folks enjoy which is the um well not too many
15:03
because it's not very crowded up there when the season's going on I haven't made it up there yet either although I'd like to it's just right kind of in the
15:10
prime of some of my muzzle loer hunting season but the September 27th October
15:15
15th is non- selective Co so you got these big wild aggressive Co that you
15:21
can retain to fish limit uh that are around that area and uh lot some folks
15:28
really really love that opportunity so uh that's pretty cool we we you know I I
15:33
remember a few years ago we did not have a That non-selective season so that's cool that that's still going strong and really the COO in general in Puget town
15:42
has been uh is looking to be good this year hey p&w Adventure Adventures uh see
15:48
your comment there appreciate it uh CQ is incredible uh you have to give give
15:55
it a shot and most of the time during the summer you can get out there and fish
16:03
with it's decently sheltered because of the the the way the land is is um
16:09
positioned and a lot of times you have West swell or Southwest swell that land cuts that swell if you get a Northwest
16:15
swell all that's coming right to seek you but most of the time you can get out there in a smaller boat fish really
16:21
effectively and have have an absolute blast so definitely something you got to do um at some point uh PW
16:30
adventures and and then again Marine a 5's looking to have
16:35
the same black now season as it had this year so April 1st to April
16:40
30th um I I didn't make it out there this year for that I uh my opportunity
16:46
to do that sort of went to my Columbia R Springer season I had to pick and choose and then I went turkey hunting which was
16:53
more of a learning experience because that was my first time turkey hunting so I didn't make it out there I really
16:59
wanted to I I love that combination of of bottom fishing and salmon Allin one
17:07
during the during the early spring so I was really looking forward to that so maybe next year 2025 I'll get out there
17:13
but uh yeah so that that's sort of position to be the same way again the this these run timing graphs
17:20
again super helpful for anyone who who's researching trip planning resources you
17:26
know we've got I I think we have the best trip planning resources on the internet uh on P pnw bestlife.com that's
17:33
that's really what I'm trying to do here what bringing digital tools to help you
17:38
um you know tackle some of these fisheries and learn new fisheries and this is one of those so this
17:44
is all many recent years of cre reports that are aggregated and you can kind of
17:50
get an idea what days have higher catch rates so you know CQ is fantastic for
17:58
for shinook fishing most of the time it's open however there are a number of
18:04
years where the the best fishing is uh
18:09
is oh thank you p&w Adventures appreciate that um the best fishing is
18:14
at the in the first few days of of the of the opener and it it's still good but
18:21
it drop it noticeably drops off after that there's a lot of shinook that are
18:26
in and around there now if you can if you can fish deeper water um you know and get your
18:32
downriggers down pretty deep you can still intercept those shnook uh on on
18:38
You Know Much Greater depth lines that's not something everyone is is set up to do but the shallower fishery that
18:45
happens you know on that 120 foot line 90 foot line or closer in the best
18:51
opportunity for that is usually in that first few days and then it can be hit or miss after that and that's why you see
18:58
kind of the success rate dip after that initial initial opener so uh and then you can see this for Co
19:06
why is this Co you will catch a ton of coo out in seeq during this time but most of them will be unmar will be
19:11
unmarked and you have to release those so you're really looking at the co-host
19:16
success rate climbs to uh very near one fish per angler in that beginning of
19:23
September so uh you you can take a look at that there
19:29
as uh and then really Peaks at about the this looks like what third week of September second second to third week of
19:35
September so is when the bulk of those fish are are around
19:41
CQ um Marine area six Port Angeles I love fishing Eddie hook and and
19:48
uh and a bunch of those spots and you know as we go through the process went
19:56
through the process because of some of the when some of the impact studies were done and the uh the Cod wire tags were
20:05
recovered and some of the stocks of concerned were not recovered in quite the same uh quantity around Port Angeles
20:13
they they've just they've had better quotas there and so if I was going to fish the straight
20:20
early on in July I would seriously strongly think about Port Angeles Marine
20:25
area 6 it's it's a little more familyfriendly too if you've got you know wife or kids in tow you know you
20:32
can rent a rent a a house a verbo or something and and uh run out done that a
20:38
number of times uh when my kids were a little bit younger and it's not where seeq is kind of like it's a it's
20:46
fisherman town you know it's it's that's what it's a fishing Village that's what goes on there P Angeles a little bit
20:52
more varied and uh you know your your wife might not give you as as hard a
20:58
Time time for taking her there uh to Port Angeles and but the seasons you
21:03
know you got two fish limit on Hatchery shinook hatri coo that's pretty awesome
21:09
so if you if you know if if you can get it done around Port Angeles you know on schnook you've got a great
21:16
opportunity and the crabbing is better in Port Angeles oh my goodness you know I mean that's to me that's part of the
21:21
summer salmon experience I've never quite figured out the crabbing around CQ but around Port Angeles you know you can
21:28
you can drop pots in the morning off of uh in the harbor there go out catch some salmon come back you know crab Feast
21:35
sometimes they even have shrimping open too around the same time and you can you can triple up I've done that that's
21:41
pretty pretty spectacular as well again if you got a question about anything
21:47
regarding North Falcon petown salmon Seasons feel free to drop it in chat we'll uh we'll definitely address them
21:53
answer them uh all right so here here's kind of the Run timing graph first and
21:59
shnook catch it's just steady as long as the season open is open they're catching
22:04
fish pretty pretty steadily there it doesn't go as it doesn't I don't think it's quite as good as CQ when CQ is on
22:11
fire but you know the people out of Port Angeles get they get their salmon you
22:17
know pretty consistently between you know 3.5 schnook parad which is great
22:22
numbers for for schnook fishing so give that a a consideration uh you know in
22:29
your early July mid July Late July whenever you're fishing it looks even it goes into August you
22:36
know it's a good it's a good bet so um let's look at Marine area 7 so now we're
22:42
into kind of the Pug Town areas that are a little more sensitive right so and
22:48
we'll talk a I want to talk a little bit more about this there's some eye opening there some eye openening data points
22:54
about Marine area 7 and and it's you know one of the things that that stand out to me is going through this process
23:00
for the last few years the Marine area seven people are very very unhappy for
23:06
good reason I mean they feel like largely they've been taken off the water since this since the shinook management
23:11
plan has come into the picture and so the Ste steel gamish has been a constraint and most of the impact on
23:19
steel guish fish comes from Marine area 7 I mean they've been they've been they used to be able to fish almost year
23:25
round for shinook and no longer no longer can do that down to a couple days there's no
23:30
blackmail season again and you know now we've got a few three-day openers which
23:36
are going to be influenced by the quotas and the catch and all that stuff so really feel for marine area 7 but
23:42
towards the end of the process uh I uncovered a data point that uh if you're
23:47
a marine area 7 salmon fisherman you're going to want to stick around here because it's it's definitely eye opening
23:53
and and concerning uh in terms of how the whole process is playing out but the
23:59
important thing to know about rary 7 9 11 10 all of these Prime sumers
24:08
shinook areas in Puget Town they're all going to be synchronized in July to open
24:13
around the same time so take a look at this so seven and nine will be similar
24:19
Thursday through Saturday only July 18th through 31st maybe add
24:24
more if we haven't hit the quota but the shinook run is at all all what it's supposed to be uh don't expect these to
24:31
be extended by any means in fact they may not even get their full run of days here and they close early so um now rer
24:41
7 did get some additional opportunity again with regards to coo some of this because the scagg COO run that's
24:48
expected to come in in 2024 is fantastic you know if you're if you do a bunch of river fishing and and
24:56
saltwater fishing you know you want to pay attention to that because this gadget is has a has a bumper crop of
25:03
natural origin and Hatchery origin coo and we don't have any major stocks of concern regards to co so we we got more
25:10
opportunities so take a look at this you've got uh September 1st to
25:16
29th uh coost season in Marine are 7 two fish limit what what do you what do you
25:22
notice about that it's non selective two fish limit that's pretty awesome uh I
25:28
can't remember what it was last year I don't believe that was it this was I I think this was a a victory for 2024
25:34
opportunity can correct me if I'm wrong about that but I believe that this was a big deal two Marine area 7 Anglers
25:41
so uh and then it's also open August 1st August 31st uh but it's it's a selective
25:49
co-host season uh during that period so still two fish limit
25:54
okay you know when it comes to schnook in Marine Air 7 it is go when it's open
25:59
right that we we all know that not going to spend a ton of time there you could see from the COO though the opportunity
26:06
really really climbs in that like latter half of September great opportunity
26:12
especially with non-selective fishing for Co in seven I'm gonna skip 8182 for
26:18
a second because I want to go I want to stay on this whole Marine area 9 7 10
26:24
and 11 shinoka opportunity here so that you can kind of see what what's going on so all right we're on to nine very
26:31
similar to seven Thursdays to Saturdays only and two fish limit one hat shnook
26:36
all right it's going to look familiar there uh a lot of folks like to hit mid Channel bank early on in that and then
26:44
later on point no point and possession uh will get a lot better as well I think
26:49
that's kind of how it went last year uh you know and I certainly experienced a
26:54
little bit of that I got one day out of it last year hoping to go more this year
27:00
and get more experience up there uh and then we've got the uh we've
27:07
got a non selective September last week of September co-host season non-
27:12
selective in mar9 which is pretty cool possession can be absolutely lights out
27:17
right during that time so uh and it's selective August 1st to September 23rd
27:23
so that's pretty consistent with previous years timing the run again for shinook
27:29
when it's open you get out there and you fish it that's just the way that goes so and then coo you could see the the
27:36
opportunity really picks up in that mid midt it's pretty solid for Co in Marine
27:43
area 9 but obviously you can get them earlier or later than that as well so all right let's go to 10 real quick okay
27:49
here's the first curve ball you get so 10 is gonna uh first of all 10 is our
27:55
earliest petown salmon opportunity uh for the summer right because you get
28:00
the June 1st non-selective resident co-o season which
28:05
is gonna you know one of the one of the topics that we had many discussions with
28:11
the Department about was this whole idea of when the the resi co-host season
28:18
would open if you were a mariner 10 Fisher fisherman last year you're pretty frustrated because right when the ocean
28:25
ocean coo came in we went down to a one fish limit super frustrating uh we
28:31
caught just ridiculous amounts of resi Coos which is great but no one wants to
28:37
make that trade of you know trading these three four pound resi coo for you
28:42
know potentially uh much much larger ocean coo quota so we're hoping to avoid
28:49
that again or we're hoping to avoid that in 20124 but the seasons look largely the
28:55
same so uh I suppose one of the things is if we we're trending really high
29:01
again we can dial it back but additionally we don't have the same stocks of concern on Co we had last year
29:07
so everyone's kind of hoping you know we'd like to have more time in the water love all that open June 1st that's great
29:13
we do not want to be curtailed on coo Harvest as the ocean coo are coming in
29:19
again so this this is definitely something to watch June 1st beginning of that opportunity should be should be
29:26
solid there uh and then you'll see for shinook again
29:31
July 18th July 18th to July 31st it's going to be synchronized with area seven
29:37
area 9ine and we'll get to it in a minute but Area 11 this is important because one of the Dynamics is right you
29:43
got to spread the effort out if one area is open other areas aren't this is a we
29:48
Trav we travel to what what's open kind of uh area in P town and so um this is
29:54
really important for keeping folks local keeping them on their local fisheries
30:00
and um spreading effort out which should hopefully allow us to have more time in the water overall so uh but once you get
30:08
into August it's full go seven days uh seven days a week open and you know this
30:15
is important because everyone wants to be on the water as early as possible but if you
30:20
look at these catch rates they're really they really explode in right at the end
30:27
of July and right into August and you know uh last year that's what happened
30:35
with our test fishing data right we we had a nice early mid July opener in
30:41
10 and there was not a ton of adult fish around some of the some of the charters don't won't even run trips that early
30:47
but there's a lot of sport Anglers out there and the test fishing boats hooking a lot of sub legals until the last last
30:54
few days of July when the adults really pushed in and and you know according to
31:00
the math of the test fishing data they they recalculate that it closed reopened
31:05
and then we got a few uh you know very short time span communicated uh you know
31:12
openers to finish off 10 and we eventually got our fish in 10 we actually did get our fish last year in 10 but made people very unhappy combined
31:21
with the co uh one fish limit when the ocean Co were showing up the department
31:27
the advisor the Rec Community all of us like we're trying to avoid the debacle that was 2023 so hopefully we'll do that
31:34
with some of these uh differences in in how the seasons are being run um let's
31:41
look at 11 real quick so uh you know
31:46
June 1st is going to be the co resi coo opener in 10 June 5th is going to be the
31:53
Wednesday through Saturday shinook opener in 11 we uh we did some damage on
32:00
the shnook last year in 11 June it was fantastic the the uh sport angling
32:08
Community we we uh we got a lot of nice fish in that season and it closed early
32:13
because we got the fish really fast so we're looking for a Wednesday through
32:19
Saturday this year and hoping that season will go the distance but you know
32:24
I I if you haven't watched this video about how catch out schnook uh there's a
32:29
lot of information about there about the timing of it what a lot of people don't understand don't realize is that June is
32:35
still kind of like a blackmail season in 11 there's a lot of fish from all over
32:40
Northtown Columbia River all over they push deep into the sound into the South Sound they're in Marine Area 13 in May
32:47
they're going to be around 11 in June and those fish are out there they're just feeding they're close to the bottom
32:53
you fish it just like a winter black mouth season with jigs or uh there'll be a lot of dog fish in there so maybe you
33:00
don't want to mooch but some people still mooch anyways uh but you troll near the bottom just like a black house
33:07
season and and you're gonna find you're gonna find schnook in all the usual places in 11 Jun June June isn't is
33:15
probably my favorite month the fish Mariner 11 the adult summer migrating fish show up right in in Late July and
33:22
August just like they do in 10 those fish do not bite as well as those fish in June those fish in June will a lot of
33:28
them are headed to their natal streams this year they're bigger fish but they are great great great feeders biters so
33:38
uh that should be on your calendar absolutely someone is uh some Marine air 11 fishermen which I know many are
33:44
probably like you know cursing right now and saying Kyle move off of this topic we have enough people fishing 11 so I
33:53
apologize but you know it's a great opportunity so and then look at the
33:58
structure is going to be just like just like 10 and and you know uh as much as different
34:05
folks got screwed in different areas last year no one uh has really um is uh
34:12
entitled to that that uh uh more than that feeling more than Marine a 11
34:17
Anglers who who really did not get a shinook season at all right in July it
34:24
opened July 1 you caught a lot of sublegal or La test fishing boat did they caught uh some some Jacks was sort
34:31
of the the the rumor and those got marked down as sublegal the way the
34:37
calculations work the season's over so uh it's super unfortunate and we're
34:42
trying we're trying really hard to avoid that in 2024 uh but again part of that will be
34:49
not opening until the 18th linking things together with the other areas and
34:55
uh and hopefully that will will be a solution and we'll have the full season we we want to be fishing on adult
35:02
Chinook in August Marine Area 11 we don't want to be you know shut down in July that that's no one wants that so um
35:09
so there you go again feel free to drop a question in chat if you have anything I'd love for this to be more interactive
35:17
be able to handle anything that you throw my way I will I will interrupt what I'm doing and and answer your question or respond to your comment so
35:25
um there you go so so you can see the timing run timing on this June uh June
35:31
is looking great usually right for shinook and then it dips it dips a little bit and then it climbs into into
35:38
that first week of August it's the best the best fishing for shinook in that
35:44
like later summer period um p&w Adventures is asking if
35:50
you get if I'm getting out for LOD in the sound uh May 1 is sneaking up great
35:55
question you know uh I have not been too excited about lingot in The Sound it's
36:01
something I I want to tackle uh but I I I catch a lot of white fish in the ocean
36:08
and places like Marine area 4 um in Nia Bay and uh my freezer is
36:14
like full of white fish by that point and there's so many other things to do I don't usually take too much part uh in
36:22
the the interior petown lingcod season although I'm I'm eyeing you know a few
36:29
opportunities I'll get back to you on that if I uh if I make it out but uh I
36:35
usually have my fill of Lin on actually I'm gonna talk about halit uh towards the end here and uh and uh you know
36:43
we'll be out probably in Westport if the if the the weather's looking ideal we'll be out there here soon uh next week
36:52
right Thursday May 2nd is the halit opener in the ocean so uh we usually try to go after link while we're out there
36:58
as well so all right let's see uh anyone want to talk about Hood
37:04
Canal Hood Canal pwn salmon season it's kind of the same deal as it's been one of these days I got to get out to Hood
37:11
Canal and fish that but there's usually so many other things to do and 13 is
37:17
looking like 13 typically does uh there's some there's some fish being caught in 13 you can look at the uh the
37:24
graph on my uh on my website and you can see that there's there's some fish being caught there and
37:30
uh it's very Hit or Miss though they're chasing bait they're actively feeding so
37:35
uh oh you fish 12 exclusive all right we'll we'll we'll uh we'll we'll connect uh we'll connect I'd love to I would
37:42
love to join you on uh fishing Hood Canal and uh and kind of learn the program out there um but as you can but
37:51
just because you posted that I will look at the graph a little bit closer here so you get uh you get Your Hood Canal
37:58
schnook pretty consistently throughout Late July early August you know the
38:04
thing about Hood Canal schook uh that's awesome is you have a four fish limit in
38:10
a 20-inch minimum size for hatry shinook I mean if you if you have a good program
38:15
in 12 uh that seems like something you would want to do and and uh you know unfortunately we can't fish the skull Co
38:22
Mish that came up a lot during North the Falcon uh but uh I mean hopeful one day
38:28
we'll get that opportunity back I love the skish as like a as a bobber fisherman I was one of the the the you
38:35
know few responsible skish fishermen uh I know there was a lot of dumb stuff
38:41
that happened out there but honestly it was one of my favorite favorite Fisheries I've ever participated in uh
38:48
fishing the low river with you know just shinook everywhere rolling and just
38:53
waiting for that bobber to go down it was it was ridiculous it was absolutely ridiculous hopefully one day hopefully
38:59
one day we'll get that back so okay I teased it a little bit that we've got there's a graphic I want to share share
39:06
with you about kind of another lens as to why we don't have better seasons in
39:14
Marine area 7 and we don't have a skyish river fishery look you can read the
39:20
headlines it say it's to protect Esa listed Chinook and yes that's true we're trying to we're trying to protect those
39:26
Chinook in snow qualy let it bounce back but there's another lens as well that I think is important to important to
39:33
consider so let me let me pull up um let me pull up
39:39
the uh SN homish Basin graph here this is uh I've called
39:45
this the impact Equity graph um now I should have done this at
39:50
a little higher resolution so you could see hopefully you can see this now all right so what I mean by that is the there's an
39:58
exploitation rate that we talked about earlier right of like how many of these fish are being uh are being killed in
40:04
different Fisheries right and Northern Fisheries everyone should know by now
40:10
Northern Fisheries are the bulk of our impact to to our stocks of concern and
40:17
and all of our fish right this is Al this is Southeast Alaska this is West Coast Vancouver Island right all of
40:24
these usual places uh you know do a lot lot of do a lot of have a lot of impact on the shinook but uh I've used two
40:32
different colors to denote what's going on in these Fisheries one orange for Selective fishing right if it's got a
40:39
fin let it swim and and the blue is non- selective now Canada Southeast Alaska
40:47
does not fish selectively right now although Canada is trending that direction because when they've had not
40:54
had non they've not had selective Fisheries they've not been marking all of their Hatchery fish uh they they they
41:00
didn't get to Fish the last time they had a really low return of of wild Chinook so Canada is moving that
41:07
direction which will help our natural stocks a ton it's going to take several
41:12
years for them to to get there but they're moving that direction what I want to draw your attention to
41:18
is forget the northern Fisheries for now look at the blue line for Puget Sound
41:23
and straight and ocean it's non Collective so just keep this in mind we
41:30
are getting no River fishery on the skyish this year 14,000 Chinook are
41:36
headed for this guy Kish in 2024 as returning fore adult fish no River
41:44
fishery for those shinook no opportunity uh this orange line is
41:53
represents the selective opportunity so your shinook in puit s in five I want you to think about this
42:00
when five closes early when nine closes early when seven doesn't get any more
42:05
days consider that the reason why is because of too much impact on the sky comish
42:13
River shinook the SN homish Basin shinook it's really the snomie fish but whatever splitting hairs here uh and of
42:22
all the impact if you were to stack these two lines together the reason why you're not getting any more opportunity
42:27
in puet sound or the river is because the ocean and certain Fisheries in the
42:33
straight are fishing non selectively non-
42:38
selectively so and and look some of you will react to this and go oh that's the tribe doing
42:46
their thing you know what no no hold on Marine area three and four have impact
42:52
on these skyus River snook they have coded wire tag recoveries there
42:57
they're fishing non-selectively okay the troll Fisheries the the the troll Fisheries that happen
43:04
in the straight commercial troll Fisheries non-
43:10
selective they're whacking they're whacking shinook now uh I'm not against
43:16
non-selective fishing however think about this if uh you may not know this
43:22
if you're just a p Town fisherman but if you fish out of Westport for salmon your shinook is non- selective out there as
43:28
well you fish out of V Waco it's non selective the Columbia
43:33
River uh used to be non- selective it's now selective on Chinook uh in a lot of
43:39
places but imagine this imagine if you're the you were talking the Columbia River for a second imagine if the
43:45
Columbia River had no River fishery no River fishery what if what if they had no retention of shinook in the Columbia
43:52
River and you do you think that the ocean areas in front would be fishing
43:58
non- selective no there's no chance no chance yet here we are the snow homish
44:07
is getting screwed here it it is no River fishery the pet town is is heavily
44:14
heavily constrained heavily impacted and we've got non-selective Fisheries happening out in front in the ocean in
44:20
the straight and and look some of them are net Fisheries some of them have you know
44:27
these are treaty rights issues they're not going to change but a bunch of them are troll fishing and some of them are
44:33
even wreck fishing um and in my experience going through the process in
44:39
fown we did not have an opportunity to talk about ocean ocean options and
44:44
matter of fact the amount of commercial impact that is able to happen in the
44:50
ocean is tied to the wreck fishing ocean quota I I didn't I didn't attend any of
44:56
those meetings ings uh I didn't see any of that process we were told that the ocean
45:02
option was going to be high high ocean option so the maximum amount of shinook was going to be taken in the ocean the
45:08
maximum amount of impact would be on Puget Town stocks of concern maximum amount of impact would be on the skyish
45:15
river shinook and that's just how the process went so I could be ignorant I'm
45:20
fairly new to it but this is this is what's going on and uh and it didn't
45:26
even get it didn't come up I I found this on the after north of Falcon public process was over I'm sitting here
45:32
staring at some of these numbers going what what is going on here wh why is why
45:38
are all these Fisheries the the you we've we've reduced impact on Sky coma shnook to a great degree as much as
45:45
possible while we still getting time on the water in Puget town no freshwater fishery and I'm like okay where's this
45:52
where's the impact still coming from and and and I came across these um these
45:57
additional non-selective Fisheries so it's something we got to address in 2025 I'm super disappointed it never even
46:04
came up as a topic of conversation but uh there you go you you should be aware
46:09
that this is this is a dynamic that's going on and uh I'm not sure exactly the
46:14
path forward but I am going to be working with those who I am in contact with on the inside to to see what can be
46:21
done about this because this is not Equitable um opportunity for our our
46:28
salmon seasons in my opinion um all right let me couple uh couple of
46:33
comments here since I started my rant thank you for letting me uh go on that rant there uh Grandpa fish the Skokomish
46:41
all his life can't say he was the most responsible the r we caught the big fish yeah man Skokomish was was outstanding I
46:48
love that fishery late login here uh from swason go Bros um I'm going to be
46:53
on the swason fery in Late July uh headed over to 9 and I'm I'm taking the boat over to Port Hardy uh for a few
47:00
days that should be a lot of fun Wonder of Northern San Juans alen Bank Point Robert's area worth a shot Canadian just
47:06
purchased us license man what's going on with that like I we usually go up to
47:12
your area and fish uh you know with the Canadian license uh well all our stuff
47:17
is shut down you telling me that uh that uh during the summer you got to come down to the US side in all seriousness
47:24
though um if you're I would really I I think that would be a great bet in uh
47:33
let's see here uh let me go back to Marine area 7 so
47:40
in for the COO opportunity in Marine area 7 uh where are we at here okay uh yeah
47:50
Marine area 7 uh in the entire month of September
47:56
right right is non selective so uh that would be that would be my my choice if I
48:03
was coming down from up North and uh I wanted to hit uh I wanted to hit the San
48:09
Juans that's where I would that that's the time frame I would I would look at I'm not as familiar with coof fishing up
48:15
there I did do a little bit of it and had success on the West Side the West I
48:20
can't remember the name of the point there um I think it's actually one of the areas that's that's like they want
48:25
you to avoid now for for srkw um uh not disrupting their feeding but that was a
48:32
lot of fun I'd love to get I'd love to get to that west side of uh of of the sanan islands again to to do that Coho
48:39
fishing because that was that was an absolute blast the islands are are perfect I mean they're they're so
48:45
beautiful I'm actually going to be down there to shrimp in uh end of May and uh
48:51
go camping on Jones Island uh which is it's it's a family favorite of of ours to to go do that that so um that'll be
48:58
awesome but yeah thanks for the comment thanks for the question all right where am I at we're I
49:04
think we're kind of done with the pet town oh I want to show you one more graph for to really uh fully piss off
49:11
the Mariner 7 fisherman so I took a I took a um this a graph that takes the
49:18
average of the S Rivers uh the S Rivers so this is still
49:25
gamish Gadget sish and I just took an average of the
49:30
exploitation rate on them and you so you can see there is some freshwater impact
49:36
although uh because you know the still guish and Gadget summerfall has a net fishery on it which is non- selective
49:43
obviously but the a the actual selective impact is extremely low and then you can
49:51
see here that these blue lines ocean plus pugan straet non- selective exceed
49:57
the fish the impact from selective fishing in puug town so uh you want to look at why you are not you don't have
50:04
more selective opportunity in Marine area 7 well yes it's the esa listed
50:10
stocks of concern but it's also all the non-selective fishing that goes on on on
50:16
those fish from the northern Fisheries the ocean and even the pit toown straight so um I know there was a
50:23
lawsuit you know a uh a year ago so about it and and it was looking at the
50:29
transparency of the process between uh you know between co-managers and the
50:34
department I don't want to comment on that that's kind of a whole whole thing but um what about what about the process
50:41
of of here that between the the ocean and petown that that's kind of my
50:46
question because uh if we're getting shut down in petown we're getting shut down on the river why are we fishing
50:51
non-selectively anywhere in the path of that I get it with Canada you know
50:57
that's a different that's a different Nation that's a different uh that's a that's a whole different challenge although that that itself is a treaty
51:04
that we negotiate every 10 years or so and I'm really hoping we do a better job with that because these wild Chinook
51:10
need uh every bit of help they can get to to bounce back and into to keep any kind of numbers we're just going to lose
51:17
these runs we're going to lose these fish we're gonna lose the opportunity so uh we gotta be we gota be more on top of
51:23
that and and we got to get our voice out there and be heard uh an advocate for sustainable fishing practices um not not
51:32
what's going on right now so all right enough about that enough about that uh
51:38
all right let's all right so I want to show you guys something else so I just published this page on pnwb bestlife.com
51:45
earlier this morning I turn the ads off to make it easier but they're still here
51:52
so I don't know why what's up with that but uh Puget Sound Straits halit fish report so no I'm not I've not become a
51:59
fishing report site however uh I I think you should you should think about cre
52:05
reports and the information on here like fishing reports right what uh you know
52:11
so I just want to take a a look for a minute how the current hbet seasons are
52:16
going on in petown in the straight as we're about to get the ocean opener and
52:22
some of you have taken part probably in those Fisheries as well but the cre reports are very
52:30
unbiased uh objective way of looking at what's being caught and how much the
52:35
effort is right so I I think if you're not using these tools um and especially
52:41
if you're newer to the game and you're trying to figure it out you're you are shooting yourself in the foot because these are super helpful of just kind of
52:47
figure out what the story is yeah you can go you can go get a a report on a forum site or social media great someone
52:53
someone had a great day H at fishing doesn't mean you're going to have a great day H at fishing right cool
52:59
someone someone got skunk doesn't mean you're going to get skunk because it's just one person or a couple people so uh
53:05
but if you look at these these uh if you can look at the raw data from wfw but
53:10
that will give you a headache so why not just come over to to p&w best life look at the the graphs super easy to consume
53:19
uh I start here with four but Four's not been four is part of the ocean season it doesn't open until May 2nd as well um
53:26
four fishes pretty well but especially later in the season in June it gets a
53:32
lot better uh if you're wondering how five is
53:37
doing it looks like it just picked up in like the last data point but Marin are
53:42
five around CQ Pillar Point it's been pretty slow I me look at these look at these numbers this is pretty it's pretty
53:48
slow now this is total angler count so some of these folks were just out there fishing for salmon right so may not have
53:55
been the hardcore H that fish from um we don't know we don't get a breakdown of who fished for what it's
54:01
just the total angler count uh but if you look at in general the success rate
54:07
it really picks up not more noticeably in June May May can be decent as well
54:12
some of that also could be the weather uh you know weather is particularly a
54:18
huge factor in four I mean if if you can get out to the main halit grounds offshore success is pretty high if you
54:25
can't and you're stuck inore it's it's a little tougher it's a little tougher so uh again five has been hasn't
54:32
had huge success relative to the effort it's got uh but I think it's gonna but
54:37
it's going to get better uh six on the other six on the other hand has been more consistent right so you look at uh
54:43
the the typical average catch per per angler catch per Rod you know from maybe
54:50
about 1 and 10 to one and four has been the odds typically for this time it's
54:55
been pretty it's pretty steady throughout the season if you look at the actual look at the actual cre graphs
55:01
here of what catch is getting reported uh this is pretty this is pretty solid right you see these these blue bars a
55:09
little bit higher more one to three one to four catch per per per angler this is
55:14
what you want to see Soh six is still going strong seven uh you know Seven's
55:20
been decent as well you know I know you know seven is is uh a little harder to
55:25
figure out if you're new if you're new you want to go out to the banks in in in Marine area 6 that that's where the best
55:32
uh you know catch rate usually happens but in seven you know you're looking for similar structure but it's a little if
55:39
you're new to it you you might need to go with someone to help help you figure it out Marine are 9 bless your heart uh
55:46
some people are catching look at this look at this there was a day in Marine are 9 where four halit were caught uh
55:51
that's pretty good day he'll catch a lot of H of it in Marin are but there'll be
55:57
a few uh you you can kind of see the averages here not not a lot not a lot of hit CAU Marine 9 UM Marine area 10 I
56:05
don't even know what to make of this but it's true people have caught halit in Marine area 10 before it has happened uh
56:13
if you're going out there to fish for H it bless your heart I don't I don't know I don't know what to tell you I have no tips for you uh good luck so uh all
56:22
right so that's you know real quick on halit you know the key with halet is is
56:28
all always it comes down to weather can you get to the ideal halet grounds and
56:33
that's a lot of that has to do with the Marine Area Marine area forecast you know uh the halit fishing season is
56:39
probably the most dangerous um you know fishing season we have and I always like
56:44
to advocate for people to um get educated if you're new if you're going out to the ocean you're going out the
56:50
straight go to the pnwb bestlife.com uh Marine you know you know weather page
56:58
for marine weather safety page for I I haven't when I sat down to to write that
57:03
page I researched a lot of different uh places and looking for tips because you
57:10
know fishermen were're Anglers right we're kind of a unique breed we want to push the limit if it's safe enough to go
57:17
fishing that's what we want we're not just trying to avoid every little bit of chop every little bit bit of swell we're
57:23
trying to get out there get our fish and come back safely so um it's kind of devoted towards that mindset and there's
57:28
not a lot of resources not a lot of free resources out there that are are are um
57:34
are positioned that way so give that give that a look if you're planning to go out and you're you're new at
57:40
navigating marine weather safety uh go check that out check that resource out
57:45
but let me show you where we are in the forecast here although I they Noah usually updates uh around 3 PM PST so we
57:54
this is actually a little little stale but let's look at the Westport forecast
58:00
here for yeah so it's been pretty pretty big
58:05
pretty big water out there but I like uh I like that it's calming down so if you
58:13
look at Wednesday uh westwell is down to four
58:18
feet I like that a lot I think that's uh I think that's uh if that Trend
58:23
continues and the macro pattern looks like it will I think Thursday the opener is going to
58:30
be is going to be solid matter of fact let me just let me just pull that up
58:35
since I have uh I know that they've updated it let's see here okay all right
58:42
uh okay so right now they're saying westwell five feet so um they marked it
58:50
up a foot and in Nia Bay it's around five feet as well so we'll see we'll see
58:57
how if that changes that gets better um as long as we don't have a lot of wind chop I I'll do four or five feet um you
59:05
know in my boat but but we'll see we we'll see the tidde tides look good you should be able to get over the bar first
59:11
thing in the morning on an incoming tide uh from you know leaving Westport so um
59:16
yeah things aren't too crazy there uh that might be might be a good a good
59:22
opportunity so keep our eye on that and then lastly uh lastly it's about to be
59:31
shrimping season so you know that's kind of my last my last topic here is uh you
59:38
know the thing that I advocate people do is is spread put all your pots out you know
59:45
in the garage or whatever put them all out and inspect the heck out of them something broke last year on your pots
59:50
or your bait Barrel or something went wrong and you know you forgot about it
59:55
cuz it's it's been a year and you know get the pots out inventory your bait
1:00:02
make sure you're all dialed in uh you don't want to be trying to fix things last minute so so especially you have to
1:00:07
order something online you know your window of getting that shipped and arriving is is is going to be running out next week so take a look at that I
1:00:15
you know we'll talk more if I do another one of these live streams before we go shrimping our shrimp openers um we'll
1:00:21
talk more about shrimp but I really love that we have three days back to back to
1:00:26
back Puget Town Hood Canal Hood Canal um that's pretty awesome that you know I'm
1:00:33
super excited about about that opportunity uh you you can check out uh my shrimp page here p&w bestlife.com
1:00:41
it's it's one of the top pages on the on the blog if you just go look that look at it there but um you can kind of see
1:00:48
what our shrimp seasons are and what the average shrimp prangler is historically
1:00:53
on some of these Marine areas and give you an idea of of uh how to approach that how to plan for that so uh we are
1:01:01
wrapping up though we've been at it for an hour and uh I'm running out of steam here so uh appreciate everyone who
1:01:08
joined took the time to comment and hope to see you on the water stay safe feel free to connect with me PW Adventures
1:01:15
let's connect on that Hood Canal salmon trip uh love to get out there with you and check that out meet up and uh yeah
1:01:23
so you know thanks for watching give uh give it a like give it a little bit more
1:01:28
attention and subscribe to the channel if you're not not already on there and we will hopefully do this again soon and
1:01:35
and love the feedback you know any feedback you can give me how to make this more valuable I'll keep doing it if
1:01:41
it's helping a few of you out in planning for your um summer salmon
1:01:46
season cbit shrimp whatever we do we do it all here so uh you know anything
1:01:52
anything you can do to be more valuable to you uh that extends to the website features digital tools uh that's really
1:01:59
what we're trying to do that's the value we're trying to bring to you is uh that's unique you know so um yeah take
1:02:08
care tight lines hope see you on the water take it easy
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