Salmon fishing in Puget Sound right now is exceptional! And for the most part, we’ve had a really good season in 2024. This blog post will discuss where we are in our Puget Sound salmon seasons and share my recent trip limiting on chinook in 5 minutes from the boat launch in Marine Area 11.
After the incredible debacle that was our salmon fishing seasons in 2023, we have to appreciate that we basically got to catch our quota of chinook salmon this year in 2024. No, everything was not ideal. The derby style openers in Marine Area 10 were far from what we would want our salmon seasons to look like going forward, but as far as I can recall, all of our summer salmon seasons so far have closed because we caught our quota of legal chinook.
No encounter limit closures and all the concerns about sub-legals. Just straight up, we caught our salmon this year.
And in fact, as of September 2nd, chinook salmon fishing is still open in Marine Areas 11 and 13! That’s right you can still get out and catch more chinook!
I was out last week by myself on a rare solo boat fishing trip. I launched the boat out of Point Defiance near sunrise and scooted across the ferry lane on the kicker motor right after the 6 am ferry departure. I got my gear down right around the boathouse in 100 ft of water.
I hadn’t trolled for more than 60 seconds when the rod started getting bit. I must not have been fully awake because I kind of just stared at it, unsure whether it was moving because I had just lowered the depth down to 90 ft or there was a fish biting.
I responded a little too late and reeled it off the clip with nothing but a flasher pulling against the water as I raised and reeled futilely hoping for some pressure that would indicate a hook-up.
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I was originally just thinking I would troll down Owen’s beach, but I said “screw it”, let’s try that again! So I did a quick 180, got right back on the 100 ft depth line where I had gotten bit, and put my green hoochie with a green Ace High Fly rigged inside it right back down to 90 ft.
I had now been fishing a full 5 minutes and the rod goes off again!
After an awesome few minutes of struggle with my knucklebuster reel singing on a few nice runs, the 12 lb hatchery chrome chinook acquiesced to my demands and came into the net.
Now what to do with the rest of my day!
Of course, the next mission is to go limit on coho. Which took me slightly longer, but the coho fishing has really picked up right now.
There are some awesome schools of coho from Marine Areas 9, 8-2, 10, and 11 to target right now. Coho fishing and some chinook fishing should go strong all the way through the month of September. It’s definitely the time to be on the water and put that last bit of salt fresh salmon in your freezer for the long winter ahead!
If you’re looking for more information on how to fish the Puget Sound for salmon, check out my comprehensive page here.
