Historically, the Puyallup and Carbon Rivers are places you can fish 7 days a week for several months of the summer/fall, and thousands of people each year look forward to this wonderful part of the calendar.
However, in 2022 the fishing regulations have changed significantly, limiting how many days a week these rivers can be fished and the months they are open. This blog article gets to the bottom of why things changed.
I recently reached out to WDFW with these exact questions on why things changed and here are the responses I received:
On why the Carbon and the Puyallup above the confluence with the White is not open 7 days a week:
Thanks for contacting WDFW about the salmon seasons in the Puyallup and Carbon River. The Carbon and upper Puyallup are closed Sun.-Tue. due to negotiations to reach agreement on a Regional Management Plan (RMP) for Chinook that secures ESA coverage for our Chinook fisheries for a 10 year period. The decision to extend the closure days to the upper Puyallup and Carbon was made to reduce impacts on wild Chinook in the Puyallup Basin in our collective fisheries in order to meet the management objectives that are part of the RMP. The wild population of fall Chinook in the Puyallup has continued to decline over the last two decades with an even sharper decline observed since 2009. Failing to reach agreement on the RMP would put coverage for all of our Chinook fisheries in Puget Sound in jeopardy.
In 2021, WDFW implemented a creel sampling study to provide estimates of salmon catch, releases of unmarked fish, and angler effort, with the intent of using the data and estimates to evaluate and improve management of the freshwater recreational salmon fishery in the Puyallup and Carbon rivers. As a conservative approach to management of the freshwater sport fishery while additional creel data is collected, the recreational salmon fishery in the Puyallup and Carbon will be limited to a maximum of 4 open days per week during times of Chinook presence (August-September). The extension of the closure days to the upper Puyallup and Carbon is to prevent effort shifts from the lower Puyallup to those areas which can increase impacts on wild Chinook migrating to the upper basin to spawn.
WDFW email
I may explore this further, but I’m noticing a trend where WDFW does these creel studies as part of monitoring the ESA-listed chinook and the results turn into even more conservative management practices…The use of professional test fishing in the saltwater I believe has had a dramatic impact on our seasons.
On why the rivers are closing after Sep 30th:
The early closures are due to low escapements of chum and wild coho in recent years, and environmental conditions in the winter of 2020 that affected both juvenile chum and coho. Unfortunately the forecasts this year for chum and wild coho in the Puyallup Drainage are two of the lowest forecasts in the last decade, with less than 2,000 adult coho forecasted to return to the entire Puyallup River. This is primarily due to extensive flooding that occurred early in the 2020 winter and affected the 2019 brood year. Those juveniles wouldn’t have emerged from the gravel when that flooding occurred, likely resulting in high mortalities to juvenile coho from that brood year. There are smolt traps which are used to estimate abundances of juvenile salmonids emigrating out of the Puyallup and White Rivers, and the estimates from the 2019 age class are much lower than average indicating that the scour from flooding resulted in significant mortalities of juvenile salmonids. Juveniles from the 2019 age class are the 2022 3 year old adults returning this fall.
Due to the low forecast for returning adults, the Carbon and Puyallup fisheries were shut down early to protect chum and wild coho in the later fall months when adults are migrating to spawning habitat in the upper portions of the watershed. The intent was to find a balance between offering recreational opportunity while also trying to protect the wild population in a year of low predicted abundance. Based on the data collected in creel surveys on the Puyallup and Carbon River the majority of hatchery adult coho that are harvested are caught in August and September. Closing fisheries at the end of September provides anglers solid opportunity for hatchery Chinook and coho and then provides protection for chum and wild coho in the later fall months. Fisheries in South Sound marine areas will also require chum release, and directed in-river fisheries for chum will not occur in the Puyallup, other than some test-fishing to assess the runsize as the fish enter the river.
WDFW Email
So now, the good news is that if the coho rebounds in 2023, we should get the month of October back. I don’t think most of the hatchery fish are caught in September as water flows play a big part in when the bulk of the run returns. Angler effort tends to be higher, but October is generally a better time to catch a hatchery coho.
Here’s a link to my full blog post on Puyallup River salmon fishing in 2024.
I am confused so coho are not returning in big numbers this year but you can keep hatchery or wild coho
Kings returned in decent numbers but you have to release wilds
Then you have the orcas starving because
$43,000,000 dollars a year is not enough money from license bought in washington state to raise fish if the coho run was not good why not close it at early September
Or release wild coho one would think if the wild population was in trouble you would want to release wild coho
This cones down to this year’s north of the falcon which I watch on zoom every year
And alot of people missed or didn’t catch what they said but I did they were talking how washington was going to give tribal something for something in return in the future well past deals like this prove that it never gets repaid and tribal just takes and wants more perfect example mccallister creek there use to be public access to fish it but when the tribe took over the refuge o the delta not only did the fishing get eliminated so did the bird hunting
And the tribe is taking fish that we paid for when they net any stretch of river above white river simple fact is the rivers in washington state do not and will not open unless the fish at the hatchery needed to raise more fish !!!!
I also was on the NoF call this year and prior years…I think the explanation I posted from WDFW largely explains your questions:
1. Most coho come into the river in Oct, so allowing a Sep fishery maximizes angler opportunity
2. The hatchery king run is fine, but the wild king run is still ESA listed as are all PS chinook, hence the partial week closure.
Regarding #2, I’m guessing the tribe is being forced to net less, which is why we are losing days on the river…It’s not typically stated plainly in the public, but the rec angler impact to wild fish is very small because of selective harvest methods, while the tribal methods are high impact because of gil nets. So if a run of salmon doesn’t allow killing of wild fish by the tribe, then selective harvest will be limited as well due to 50/50 allocation rule…