Been a good year, with lots and lots of unclipped fish all over, which has been great to see. But I have a question for you all: Why the early closure in MA9? Is it because so many of the returning spawners run up through Admiralty Inlet and down past the points? I mean, we end up fishing those same fish on the west side, but I guess they are spread out by then. Just curious as to the reasoning. Thanks in advance for any ideas.
Puget Sound
- Thread starter Stonedfish
- Start date
Just my opinion.
We lost October due to Snohomish wild coho numbers.
I’m not sure on the reasoning behind clipping off the last week of September other then for the same reason as above and / or someone asked for it and WDFW went right along with it.
As are as the numbers of unclipped fish, I’d be more excited if I felt they were all truly wild fish.
SF
Sounds right to me.
The number of unclipped fish around in mid July is an indicator of their origin I imagine. I had a 12 adult unclipped coho landed in a row streak. 19 out of 23 landed at one point. This all happened very early in the season.
Unless wild rezzies are a thing. Or ocean fish were super early. This may be the case and I am just unaware.
There are wild coho that run way up PS systems earlier than you might think. Not all wild fish are later run fish. There’s a lot more diversity in run timing than the common knowledge dictates. I was looking at good numbers of bright and colored coho at the upper limit of anadromous access on the Sky this August.
The Puyallup is usually full of silvers when it opens mid August with quite a few being "wilds". Typically smaller 24-24 in fish we see as rezzies
Good to know. I always assumed there were some but also figured a good chunk of the 3-5 lb unclipped fish caught the first couple weeks of the season were hatchery rezzies that remained unclipped for a variety of reasons. This year there were much more than I have encountered in the past. Hoping that is an indicator of more truly wild fish returning. Though someone told me or I read on here that could be driven by staffing issues at hatcheries due to Covid. Less staff, less rezzie clipping…(sorry, can’t recall the source).
It could be that there are relatively more unclipped hatchery and more wild fish returning at the same time this year.
Depends on where you fish, for me it's until the end in October, then move onto something else in November.
Usually the end of October for me, but I know some folks that used to catch some nice November beach coho.
Catching beach coho on Halloween was always a lot of fun.
The best part was if you showed up at 7-7:30, you weren’t late because it gets light so much later and you almost always had clouds or fog. Very few people as well around compared to early in the season. There were days when the weather would kick the shit out of you.
SF
Catching beach coho on Halloween was always a lot of fun.
The best part was if you showed up at 7-7:30, you weren’t late because it gets light so much later and you almost always had clouds or fog. Very few people as well around compared to early in the season. There were days when the weather would kick the shit out of you.
SF
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If I’m not mistaken you are allowed to have 2 limits of fresh salmon and an additional 40 pounds of frozen, or smoked salmon in your possession at one time.
The end of October, then I will move on to skiing... somewhere. Still will fish MA10, which somehow feels like I'm catching the same fish I would have gotten at MA9.
Thanks for the feedback. Looking back through the years, I see as recently at 2018 or so, MA9 was open until the end of October. The change kicked in from 2019 on.
And then on some special late fall days you would get what I call a "hero's wind", gusting from the rear and away from the body, when you can shoot a cast nearly to the backing.
Heck yeah there is. Downriggers for depth, and the bug rod for casting & bucktailing at the same time.
At least, that's what I do (but with a 6wt).
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