Where and when to fish for Summer Chinook in Puget Sound

That’s a legit coho! Well done, and good seeing you out there. My hall pass expired an hour before the high, was wondering how it went. Good to see the big ones coming in.

Beating up on the powerboats in 13.

Man, you have MA13 wired. Do you pretty much catch fish wherever you go?

@ henney Nice silver! Where were you guys at? Me, mikeee and bogueYaker fished between Meadow Point and Carkeek park for about 5 hours this morning. mikeee caught a dog fish and I got skunked but bogueYaker caught a nice pink.

Beating up on the powerboats in 13.

Man, you have MA13 wired. Do you pretty much catch fish wherever you go?

Well 13 is my backyard. I have spent and do spend most of my time fishing it. Always something new to learn. Nice fat Coho henney.

Beating up on the powerboats in 13.

Man, you have MA13 wired. Do you pretty much catch fish wherever you go?

@ henney Nice silver! Where were you guys at? Me, mikeee and bogueYaker fished between Meadow Point and Carkeek park for about 5 hours this morning. mikeee caught a dog fish and I got skunked but bogueYaker caught a nice pink.

North end of MA11, trying to catch a chinook before it closes.

Beating up on the powerboats in 13.

Man, you have MA13 wired. Do you pretty much catch fish wherever you go?

Well 13 is my backyard. I have spent and do spend most of my time fishing it. Always something new to learn. Nice fat Coho henney.

It was so fat I thought it might be some kind of hook nose hen. Pulled two green/blue label herring out of it's belly.

Hoping to visit MA13 next weekend on the early morning low.

MA 11 closing to Chinook 8/26, opening up 7 days a week for Coho/Pinks.

https://fortress.wa.gov/dfw/erules/efishrules/erule.jsp?id=2385

Chinook fishing for me ended with the MA10 closure. I’ve since been fishing the same spots with Coho gear and have done OK but certainly  not great. In late August of past years there was a good mix of rezzies and ocean Coho but this year I’m only finding rezzies and an occasional pink. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that the ocean fish are just late.

They're forecasting a good year for returning Coho, right? How do you distinguish b/w an ocean coho and a resident -- size alone?

They're forecasting a good year for returning Coho, right? How do you distinguish b/w an ocean coho and a resident -- size alone?

Yes, residents tend to be a lot smaller. My personal opinion is that everything is late, even the Chinook. The creel reports from Sekiu are generally a good barometer of how the fishing will be in the Sound in the following weeks:

https://wdfw.wa.gov/fishing/reports/creel/puget?ramp=Olson%27s+&sample_date=1

Dividing the number of fish by the number of anglers will give you catch per unit of effort (fish per rod) which can be compared against different days (normalized). A CPUE of 1 is usually really good fishing. You can see the pinks being close to it the past week with Coho lagging behind. CPUE for a species to hit 1 or around 1 there is a lot of them moving through the Strait and into the Sound.

A13. Ditched the Raymarine and bought a fancy Lowrance.

A13. Ditched the Raymarine and bought a fancy Lowrance.

Dude, I'm pretty sure it was the shorts, not upgrading your electronics!  Great catch! Still after my 1st decent fish from the sound.

Last few days in MA13. After fishing hardcore the last two months I'm shutting it down.

28 Chinook punched out. 1 in MA9, 6 in MA12, 4 in MA11, 17 in MA13.

Heck of a haul! What do you do with all of that meat? 4 pink salmon and I feel like my freezer is overflowing. I'll gladly send you my address if you're looking to get some off of your hands 

I mentioned this before but the fish are fileted and vacuum sealed then distributed throughout my work and friends. This year I've been BBQn with my friends. I usually will save the collars and bellies early in the season for me cause they're tasty. Usually will bake the backbones and scrape the meat off for salmon patties, heads go to the Asian folks at work for their soups, anything left is thrown in the sound. It sucks and is more work than the actual fishing most of the time.

That's cool -- I'm sure that those vacuum packs are well received. Neat to know how you really make the most of the fish -- I'll look into baking the skeletons to collect meat for patties. I'm hoping to start filleting fish before I head home for the day.... I'd like to think that will make the whole processing thing easier.

That's cool -- I'm sure that those vacuum packs are well received. Neat to know how you really make the most of the fish -- I'll look into baking the skeletons to collect meat for patties. I'm hoping to start filleting fish before I head home for the day.... I'd like to think that will make the whole processing thing easier.

Yeah I usually fill up a WinCo bag full of the fillets and they're gone at the end of the day. Distributing it to a bunch of people in a way that it'll keep at least a year if frozen is the best solution to make sure all of it used...