Puget Sound Fishing Update for September, 2019

Did summer ever actually happen? Technically, September is still summer, but it sure feels like we are now in the fall. It doesn’t help that all the stores have Halloween stuff out, the autumn beers are on the shelves and the salmon are in the rivers! Let’s cover what the options are in September to get into some salmon.

Most of the year, it’s not so much a question of where to go, because opportunity is limited and many of our options require travel. Not so in September. Saltwater? Freshwater? Kings? Silvers? Pinks? What do you want to fish for and what kind of fishing do you want to experience? It’s all on the table! But not all month, and not everywhere, so let’s get into it.

Saltwater options

If you still want to fish for Kings in the Puget Sound, you still have opportunities. In Marine Area 13, there’s a massive amount of Kings staging off of the Nisqually Delta and between the Delta and the Deschutes hatchery.

This opportunity may only exist for the next 7-10 days, so you need to get on it! Jigging, slow trolling a cut plug green label, or trolling a hoochie / herring strip behind a pro troll flasher (with the agitator fin so you can go slow) are all successful methods right now.

My social media is blowing up with all the Silvers being caught in the Central / North Sound. If you are up in that area, right now is the time to get on the water and target ocean returning coho.

They have only been around in good numbers for the past week, so expect it to get better over the next 2-3 weeks. Areas like Edmunds, Kingston, Shipwreck, Possession and the Mukilteo Ferry area are all producing. Remember that Kings like structure and depths in that 50-120 ft range, but you will more often find silvers in the shipping lanes in 250-500 ft of water, and often in the top 60 ft of water.

Bear in mind that as we get significant rain, the saltwater action on coho tends to cool off as these fish head up river in response to rising water. So if you are like me and like to alternate between salt and fresh, you are looking at a playbook like the following:

1. If rivers are rising i.e. rain, fish the rivers as they drop
2. If weather is dry and not raining recently, get the boat out and target the fish that are staging in the saltwater.

In addition to the areas mentioned, don’t forget that Area 7 is now open as well after being closed to recreational fishing all of August. Fishing Eagle point and the west side of the islands are a good bet.

If you are in that Tacoma area, in addition to the MA13 opportunity, consider the Redondo, Robinson Point and Dash Point areas. You have the advantage of being able to target silvers, and likely still hooking pinks over the next week as they clear out and the silvers move in.

Freshwater

I will highlight three opportunities that may be worth considering.

Nisqually River

The Chinook run in the Nisqually is better than last year’s somewhat disappointing run, but not anywhere near the great results in 2017. The run also seems to be mostly out in the salt still as of when this article was written.

Tides make a huge difference in where the fresh fish are as the hatchery is only a few miles from the salt. Fish will move in on flood tides, but commit to head up river on the ebb. Depending on where you fish the river, take into account Low Tide and High Tide in your notes to dial in the best days to fish.

Nets are in Sun-Tue, but the river is only closed on Sundays. Often, the Nisqually kings are great egg biters, but this changes from year to year as well. I’ve had great success on the red Pautzke Fire Cure eggs. And the Pautzke Borax O’ Fire pink as well.

Puyallup River

Starting September 1st, the river is closed Sun-Tue for 3 days of tribal netting. When it opens tomorrow, September 4th, you will be able to keep 4 Pinks! This can be a great egg harvest opportunity and these fish are still quite fresh so they will smoke up great. Over the next 1-2 weeks, you will start to notice more silvers in your catch mix.

Hopefully, we get some rain and a bit of water clarity as well. Spoons, spinners, and jigs for coho are just epic fun!

Carbon River

The Carbon is stuffed with Chinook right now, and some of them are even still chrome. The chrome king fishing won’t last long though.

Fish kept after the 10th typically won’t cut very well unless they are 20+ lbs due to the fat content like the pic at the top of this article. Bear in mind there are loads of people fishing the Carbon and parking restrictions.

You will likely need to pickup a parking pass at Big J’s Outdoors for parking several places around Orting. Most people here are running the long leader drift fishing program here, but these fish will bite eggs.

Keep in mind, there’s like 2″ of visiblity, so getting fish to go on eggs is about locating the river bottom, coming up 2-6″ on your bobber stop and finding holding areas which have slow enough current to keep your bait in front of the fish with enough time to entice a bite.

While this sounds hard…and it is, but if you can get it dialed in: Due to the low visibility, the bite can be epic as the usually sunlight sensitive salmon will literally bite all day vs that first few hours of the day drill common on other rivers.

There are maybe only 10-20 ft of “good” bobber water every .5 miles of this river, but it’s almost all walkable, so this is a great place to learn how to fish with bobber and eggs. Get that technique dialed in and it will help you out a great deal out on the coast in October.

I still owe a river fishing for salmon article for the blog readers, but it’s tough to not try to spend all of my free time on the water with so many great opportunities right now. Good luck!