Fishing in the South Puget Sound in July has largely been a grind-it-out program for most, though some may have it really dialed in. For others, it has been a significant challenge to hook anything. In this article, we will go through some of what we’ve been doing, summarize what we’ve seen and think, and project it forward to the month of August in terms of what’s coming up.
I’ve been out quite a bit in Marine Area 13 and 11 the past few weeks. I’ve even found a way to get out while my truck burnt to a crisp.
I loved that truck!
I’ve been watching the creel reports, and escapement reports, monitoring various social media sources, and chatting with folks within my fishing network.
The South Sound is still grinding out fish. It hasn’t gotten “hot” yet. And when I say hot, I mean .5 kings per rod. Even a king for every 3 rods consistently would be pretty hot. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, you need to cruise over to the WDFW site and check out the creel reports.
For me personally, we’ve hooked several fish, and we’ve released some wild fish and sub-legals. We’ve bonked a hatchery fish and lost some nice ones, but overall it’s been tough.
There was a notable increase in fish that pushed into the South Sound this past weekend, but this push has largely coincided with some tougher tides to fish.
The good news is that the tides get significantly better towards the end of the week and into the following with a morning flood tide and decent tide exchange. Let’s talk about tides and salmon fishing for a few minutes here.
Why’s are tides important? Tides are important because the tidal currents both effect the concentration of bait and thus salmon and they affect how you have to present your offering to the fish.
The worst tides are the small tide exchange tides: 2,3 or 4 ft of tidal exchange just isn’t going to get it done. Bait will not be pushed near points or other areas which will result in salmon being concentrated in the same areas looking for an easy meal.
The 2nd worst tides are the big tide exchanges. Take today for example, a 12 ft high tide at 4:30 am with a -2 ft at 11:15 am. That’s 14 ft of tidal movement. While that will certainly concentrate bait, it will also limit where and how you can fish.
South Sound fish love hoochies, they also love slower moving presentations, they may not be metabolically willing to get up and chase your hoochie being trolled at 4+ mph as a result of the ripping current combined with your speed over ground to get that hoochie to spin. My page on Puget Sound Salmon fishing talks extensively about speed over ground and why it’s important for presentations like hoochies and ace high fly’s. My favorite tides are 7-9 ft of tide exchange with a tide change happening in the morning, within a few hours of first light. These are money tides and we have them coming up this weekend.
Here’s a rundown of what we’ve hooked fish on so far:
- Cerise Haze flasher with purple haze hoochie and herring strip
- Blue crush flasher with green spatter back hoochie and herring strip
- Mountain dew flasher with green spatter back ace high fly and herring strip
- Pro troll green/silver flasher with agitator fin and plug cut herring green label
- Green / white 2 oz crippled herring jig
- Mountain dew flasher and herring aide coho killer spoon
Hopefully the above gives you some ideas if you have been struggling so far this season, but if you look at the creel reports, you are certainly not alone.
Another interesting resource to tell you about fish abundance and presence is looking at the escapement reports. Look at the numbers of Voights Creek (Puyallup river system hatchery), and for Minter Creek as a way to understand how many kings are returning and where they are at.
I especially like to look at the Minter Creek numbers because the hatchery is so near the salt. When you see those numbers pop it’s time to hit places like the Gig Harbor shoreline and Point Evans to target these fish. There’s so much more I could write about with this fishery, but I will leave you with one of my favorite stories of the season so far:
I was trolling along in one of my favorite areas in MA13, not seeing many marks though, until I noticed two nice marks at about 80 ft. My gear was up at about 45.
I quickly attempted to drop down to about 60 in the hopes that I would get their attention and produced a strike. As I was dropping, my line popped off the downrigger release.
I paused for a second as I thought “how strange…I didn’t think I was dropping it too fast…” Than, I noticed my rod tip bouncing and it just clicked with me that my line had popped off because I had a fish!…and I’ve just been staring at it for the past few seconds!
I quickly grabbed my rod and started to reel and it was at that moment that a big tub of a king came flying about 5 ft out of the water 50 ft behind me, spitting my hook.
As I futilely continued to reel, and I realized that this fish had gotten off, he made 3 more 5-6 ft leaps out of the water, each one closer to the boat. Had I been thinking quickly enough, I could have turned the boat around and he may have jumped into my boat! Who would have ever believed that one?!?
Sometimes, it’s the ones that get away that haunt you and leaving you hungry for more fishing. Good luck this weekend, and lets hook some chinook.