Explaining the Marine Area 10 closure, re-opening in August 2023

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marine area 10 chinook king salmon near seattle aug 2023

The summer salmon season in 2023 was one of the absolute best in quite some time!

The abundance of coho and chinook results in many wonderful fish-catching adventures throughout the Puget Sound, Strait, and Ocean.

However, many anglers will best remember 2023 for the two very confusing, confounding, and anger-inducing closures that occurred in Marine Area 10 and Marine Area 11.

This blog article attempts to explain the Marine Area 10 closure in much greater detail than how most of us have previously understood it.

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Skykomish River Winter Steelhead Fishing 2023-2024

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Skykomish River Winter Steelhead Fishing 2023-2024

Skykomish River

There is really only one option available to those who want to fish the rivers of the Puget Sound for winter steelhead and that’s the Snohomish River system, of which the Skykomish River generally has the larger steelhead return.

The Skykomish River drains the northern cascades, with the river winding westward along highway 2 until meeting the Snoqualmie River to form the combined “Snohomish River”.

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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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Tidal River Chinook fishing and my new favorite lure – Sep 2023

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Right now, every river salmon fisherman in the PNW with proximity to saltwater is trying to figure out how to get it done on the tidal push of chinook coming their way. I want to explore this topic of “timing the tides”, but also highlight what is now my new favorite lure!

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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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