Next week will begin a series of season openers for the 2019 salmon season for the Strait and interior of Puget Sound. For the last several years, I’ve attended the opener out in Port Angeles and had excellent results. This year may be even better, for a number of reasons we will discuss in this post.
Marine Area 11 and the excellent water around Point Defiance also opens on July 1st, which is where I will be. Due to a number of factors I will not make it out to PA (Port Angeles) until the following week, but that’s where I would definitely prefer to be on July 1st.
There’s nothing like the ocean-bright fish you can catch in the “mostly calmer” waters of the Strait.
These fish are incredibly willing biters and active feeders, as long as you can find them. This is in contrast sometimes, to the fish in the central or south puget sound, later in the season which may not bite as well.
One of my favorite spots to fish is right off of Ediz Hook. You will be out there with a lot of other boats, but it doesn’t matter, it’s worth it. The morning tide on July 1st will be a -1.9 ft at 8:23 am, which means that the most productive first few hours of the morning will be an ebb. You should start your troll west of the red buoy at the end of the spit and troll east to west all the way down to the “stacks” at the west end of the Ediz Hook.
Many of the boats will be out in 90-150 ft of water, but we’ve always done better in 60-90 ft with about 50-60 ft of wire out on the downriggers.
On an ebb, the bait will get pushed down to the western end of Ediz Hook, but you can hit fish anywhere along the hook, so it’s definitely worth starting your troll at the top, but then maybe focussing on the last half of the hook on subsequent passes.
The Coyote Blue Crush flasher was money last year when combined with the Silver Horde Herring Aide #3 Kingfisher spoon. We had 90% of our hookups on that setup and I just bought another one myself as I’ve lost some gear since this last year. Good luck finding that spoon on shelves once the season gets going!
Another option to consider while out there is trolling against the current in 150-250 ft of water, but still 50-80 ft of wire on the downrigger to target the sockeye which are sometimes present traveling to north Puget Sound rivers like the Skagit. Even some Fraser River fish may be present.
We’ve also had success running the pink Ace High Fly jr behind an 8″ flasher and deep six diver as our 3rd rod out the back between our 2 downriggers. Check out more ideas like this on our page devoted to Puget Sound Salmon Fishing.
Why might 2019 be better in the Strait? The forecasts and quotas are actually more restrictive this year, however in 2019, the entire coast of Vancouver Island has been shutdown for commercial and recreation harvest of kings. Many of these Kings are our hatchery fish returning to the Puget Sound.
While most of Puget Sound has some very restrictive seasons and quotas, the Strait has fishing open every day until the quota is reached. For these same reasons, fishing terminal areas like MA13 in the South Sound may be incredible this year due to all the other seasons and quota restrictions this year (4 days in MA9!).
You can also try bait presentations, but be advised, that there are usually quite a few dogfish present this time of year and you will hook those even just on trolling spoons.
Wherever you fish on the Strait, make sure you know the weather (especially wind!) conditions. You can fish Ediz Hook in a small boat, but you better have a window of calm wind or you will be in for a rough and potentially dangerous time.
Other options to fish on July 1st are the Ocean, and Marine Areas 5 and 6. You can also hit Marine Area 10 for resident coho. And both 11 and 13 will be open for summer kings.
