Stillaguamish River Salmon Fishing 2023

If you’re interested in the Stillaguamish River, there’s a good chance it’s not because you are planning to fish it this year, but instead are wondering what the heck is going on with this oft referenced river as the reason why you can’t fish wherever you prefer.

This blog post attempts to unpack all of these topics and more.

The “Stilly” as it’s commonly referenced is a stunningly beautiful river draining the mountainous region just west of the North Cascades and flowing freely until it reaches Port Susan.

For many who’ve never fished the Stillaguamish River and have no plans to ever do so, the river is quite well known for it’s faltering run of chinook salmon that has become the “constrained stock” of the decade for limiting chinook fishing all over the Salish sea.

We will explore the conservation topic in this blog post and how that run of chinook salmon is recovering, but also there is a viable coho season on the river that some take part in, and just like all our river salmon posts, you can find the forecasts, escapement graphs and run timing below.

Will that Stillaguamish Chinook run ever recover and stop being a “constrained stock”?

The above is what we would call a long term sustained downward trend. Not good, in terms of the trajectory of recovery for Stilly chinook salmon.

The primary culprit? Loss of spawning habitat. Yeah, you could blame predation or ocean conditions or a myriad of other factors that impact chinook, but the fact remains, of all the Puget Sound chinook salmon runs, this is the weakest stock due to habitat unsuitability for spawning chinook (plus all the other reasons mentioned).

Well, shouldn’t we provide a conservation hatchery to help the recovery along? Already being done, and for quite some time actually. In fact, these “hatchery chinook” are fin clipped, meaning they get bonked throughout our fisheries.

Why would we fin clip a conservation hatchery stock? Apparently. in accordance with the Pacific Salmon Treaty with Canada, the only way we can get them to scan for the Coded Wire Tags (CWT’s), is if we fin clip these fish. Fin clipped Stillaguamish chinook, genetically indistinguishable from the Natural Origin chinook (NOR) are an important indicator stock, so this is currently required.

The fin clipped requirement of these hatchery fish impacts seasons throughout Puget Sound as these chinook are historically averaging half of the run of chinook that make it to the spawning grounds. Fewer mortalities of hatchery origin Stillaguamish Chinook means more fishing opportunity in Puget Sound…

But wait there’s more!

Of the fisheries related mortalities (marine mammal predation is 7x the mortality of all fisheries combined according to NOAA), the overwhelming majority occur within BC. Although, some would say AK is much higher, but they allegedly ignore our reporting protocols on CWT’s.

And some of you complain that the tribe is taking more than their fair share…

The SUS Sport category translates to Southern US Sport Fisheries i.e. marine sport fishing catch of hatchery Stillaguamish River chinook and release mortalities on unmarked NOR chinook.

However, again, even all of these factors included, other rivers within Puget Sound don’t have nearly the issues the Stillaguamish does with regards to spawning success.

As you can see, higher river flows equates to very low egg-to-migrant survival. In general, we are trending towards drier summers with less snowpack and higher fall rain fall totals, which translates to redd destroying water flows and massive impacts to out-migrating chinook survival.

Habitat recovery is ongoing, but its a slow and steady effort to make up for decades of land use without considering impacts to salmon. You can read more about the habitat recovery on the Stillaguamish here.

A final note on this topic, more fish spawned in the Stillaguamish in 2022 than expected, and over 2x that original forecast are expected to make it to the spawning grounds in 2023. This is great news, but doesn’t change the allowable impacts that move the needle on salmon seasons until the below thresholds are reached:

Forecasted Total Runsize of: 900-1500 equates to an unmarked exploitation rate of 9% and a marked exploitation rate of 15% and above 1500 that goes to 13% and “no constraint” respectively.

So, a continued positive trajectory here over the next few years could be helpful, but I’m not holding my breath either.

Updated Status of returning Coho on the Stillaguamish River

These graphs will automatically update as fish start to return to the hatchery

Historical Run Timing of Coho on the Stillaguamish River

Forecast for 2023 Stillaguamish River Pink

This is the forecast map published as part of North of Falcon, you need to look for Stillaguamish River on the map and interpret the color.

Forecast for 2023 Stillaguamish River Coho

Escapement history just counts fish at the hatcheries that report escapement, total runsize combines escapement plus estimated catch of hatchery fish.

Forecasts are for total runsize, total return isn’t available until estimated catch has been calculated and released.

This is the return map published as part of North of Falcon, you need to look for Stillaguamish River on the map and interpret the color.

This is the forecast map published as part of North of Falcon, you need to look for Stillaguamish River on the map and interpret the color.

Fishing Regulations for Stillaguamish River Salmon 2023

mainstem and all sloughs downstream of Marine Drive (south of Stanwood) CRC (876)
All species		Night closure.
	Aug. 1-Nov. 30	Anti-snagging rule. Except: Anti-snagging gear restriction does not apply to sturgeon.
Trout	Year-round	Statewide min. size/daily limit. Except: Cutthroat trout and wild rainbow trout: min. size 14”.
Other game fish	Year-round	Statewide min. size/daily limit.
Sturgeon	Year-round	Catch-and-release. Sturgeon gear rules apply.
from Marine Drive upstream to forks
All species	Sept. 16-Nov. 30	Selective gear rules. Night closure.
Trout	Sept. 16-Nov. 30	Catch-and-release.
	Dec. 1-Jan. 31	Statewide min. size/daily limit. Except: Cutthroat trout and wild rainbow trout: min. size 14”.
Steelhead (hatchery)	Sept. 16-Jan. 31	Min. size 20”. Daily limit 2.
Other game fish	Sept. 16-Nov. 30	Catch-and-release.
	Dec. 1-Jan. 31	Statewide min. size/daily limit.
Salmon	Sept. 16-Oct. 31	Min. size 12”. Daily limit 4 including no more than 2 coho. Release Chinook and chum.
from water control structure/barrier dam (downstream of I-5) downstream 200’
All species		CLOSED WATERS.

If you are reading the above regulations prior to July 1st, they may be out of date (reflecting the prior year) and you should consult WDFW for the permanent regulations, this message will be removed once the current year regulations are reflected here

Emergency Fishing Regulations for Stillaguamish River Salmon 2023

The above permanent regulations for the Stillaguamish River are subject to change at any time and without being updated on this blog. One must consult the WDFW Emergency Regulations before any trips to ensure they are in full compliance with state laws regulating fisheries.