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Puget Sound

257K views 3K replies 240 participants last post by  speedbird49 
#1 ·
It is true.
The place sucks. Believe everything you've heard.
The ferry ride was expensive, no fish, traffic is bad, lots of people and the scenery is terrible.
Stay away for your own good......;)
SF

Cloud Sky Water Atmosphere Water resources
 
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#1,672 ·
Speaking of space travel. Alan Shepard had a great quote. When asked what he was thinking about just prior to attempting to become the first man in space he responded, I am thinking that I "sit on top of a machine made up of several hundred thousand parts all of which were manufactured by the lowest bidder."
cool quote but the idea of a govt agency making purchasing decisions based on the lowest bid is comical.
 
#1,673 ·
As someone that deals with govt agencies on a daily basis, I have come to the conclusion that - in regards to purchasing assets ranging from notepads to ships - the official policy must be "how can we spend the most money for the smallest return?"

When it comes to human resources it's a slightly different story. "Lowest bidder most important. Qualified people less important.
 
#1,677 ·
Nice fish. I invited this new couple to join a small outdoor dinner we're hosting tonight. No one seems to mind.

Fin Salmon-like fish Fish Marine biology Seafood

Salmon-like fish Automotive parking light Hood Fish Fender

Funny story about the one in the net. I was fishing next to at least one other board member and we'd both seen each other release a few shakers and lose some bigger ones. I was in "a couple more casts" mode and turned to my right and proclaimed in my best tongue in cheek suburban sports dad pep talk voice "ok guys, we know there's some big ones out there, let's go get 'em." We both started laughing, but no sooner do I start my roll cast when this guy just demolishes the clouser at 10 feet from the rod tip.
 
#1,678 ·
Nice fish. I invited this new couple to join a small outdoor dinner we're hosting tonight. No one seems to mind.

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Funny story about the one in the net. I was fishing next to at least one other board member and we'd both seen each other release a few shakers and lose some bigger ones. I was in "a couple more casts" mode and turned to my right and proclaimed in my best tongue in cheek suburban sports dad pep talk voice "ok guys, we know there's some big ones out there, let's go get 'em." We both started laughing, but no sooner do I start my roll cast when this guy just demolishes the clouser at 10 feet from the rod tip.
I believe I was fishing close by you today as well. It was silly good for a bit there. Took a blown up rod to run me off that beach and back to the truck for another rod and a different beach….that also produced quite well. Fun morning.

Food Vertebrate Seafood Fin Fish
 
#1,690 ·
This weekend surely did not suck. Nice weather and even with bluebird sky's, lots of fish willing to play. Like last year, off to a very solid start with lots of fish around. August and September 2020 were tough though so crossing my fingers this continues. It did slow a bit today.

A fish sample from the weekend.

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Water Azure Fluid Liquid Organism


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Non fish indicators of success. Sore, beat up hands. Don't be like me, remember your tape boys and girls…

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Puget Sound; not a bad place to spend your fishing time….
 
#1,691 ·
This weekend surely did not suck. Nice weather and even with bluebird sky's, lots of fish willing to play. Like last year, off to a very solid start with lots of fish around. August and September 2020 were tough though so crossing my fingers this continues. It did slow a bit today.

A fish sample from the weekend.

View attachment 289858

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Non fish indicators of success. Sore, beat up hands. Don't be like me, remember your tape boys and girls…

View attachment 289863

View attachment 289874

Puget Sound; not a bad place to spend your fishing time….
Funny on that last picture. I wore the same sweatshirt fishing three days in a row. I always stick my rod under my left arm to two hand strip.
When I got home, I happened to notice the big ring of underarm salt crust.
The people in Fred Meyers who saw me after this mornings beach session must have been thinking......
"That dude really needs some deodorant. He looks like a human salt block. Thankfully there aren't any deer in here".
SF
 
#1,722 ·
This weekend surely did not suck. Nice weather and even with bluebird sky's, lots of fish willing to play. Like last year, off to a very solid start with lots of fish around. August and September 2020 were tough though so crossing my fingers this continues. It did slow a bit today.

A fish sample from the weekend.

View attachment 289858

View attachment 289861

View attachment 289862

View attachment 289860

View attachment 289859

View attachment 289857

Non fish indicators of success. Sore, beat up hands. Don't be like me, remember your tape boys and girls…

View attachment 289863

View attachment 289874

Puget Sound; not a bad place to spend your fishing time….
Nice looking fish. What fly line are you using, the only line that cuts me like that was a Airflo ridged. I thought ridge ment stiffer, but it had a cross section that looks like a gear, (ridges) with each tooth made from a razor blade. Nick May remember that day I fished it my finger was a bloody mess.
 
#1,724 ·
I am using a Rio OBS. I think it is a combo of long hours with salty wet hands, stripping using that same finger every time and locking down on hooked fish with that finger. It happens every salmon season. I actually just broke down and bought a 3 pack of wingo stripping guards for 9 bucks. No idea if they'll help. Tape works great too. I always forget to put it on and applying it to wet hands does not always work. It ends up not sticking well. I figure throwing a few small sleeves into my wader pockets means they'll always be there and can be applied all the time. We'll see how they work.

Sleeve Gesture Rectangle Font Automotive tire
 
#1,706 ·
Nice to know that the little 8" resident coho punks I was catching all last year grew up and are somewhere else. I haven't seen any around this year when out. It's weird, where I have been fishing I'll see either Coho, or Cutthroat, but, not a at the same time. Not seeing alot of big cutthroat this year, but, managed to find a few.

Still waiting some salmon to come in for the BBQ. Went out last night nada. Wind made for a very bumpy boat ride in the 14 foot skiff.
 
#1,710 ·
The regs that allow wild coho retention in MA 10 and MA 11 still seem odd to me, while MA 9 has wild coho release required.
If you just look at the Snohomish, Stilly and Hood Canal, the forecast is for a combined 117K wild fish this year.
I understand the Snohomish is the driving force behind MA 9 wild coho release.
If you take the mid and Deep South, the combined forecast is for 27K wild fish.
It isn’t like the Green, Puyallup and Nisqually have been great wild coho producers for a long time. The Puyallup being the best with a forecast of 10K wild coho. The Green is a whopping 1,500 and the Nisqually is 3,200.

I’m not advocating for wild coho harvest in MA 9, but more so interested in what drives the decision they can be harvested in MA 10 and MA 11 for that matter.
The numbers, at least to me don’t justify wild coho retention in 10 or 11.
Have they just given up on mid and south sound wild coho?
If that is the case, how about giving up on wild Stilly chinook as well.
You can also harvest wild coho in MA 12 but not in MA 13.
SF
 
#1,711 ·
The regs that allow wild coho retention in MA 10 and MA 11 still seem odd to me, while MA 9 has wild coho release required.
If you just look at the Snohomish, Stilly and Hood Canal, the forecast is for a combined 117K wild fish this year.
I understand the Snohomish is the driving force behind MA 9 wild coho release.
If you take the mid and Deep South, the combined forecast is for 27K wild fish.
It isn't like the Green, Puyallup and Nisqually have been great wild coho producers for a long time. The Puyallup being the best with a forecast of 10K wild coho. The Green is a whopping 1,500 and the Nisqually is 3,200.

I'm not advocating for wild coho harvest in MA 9, but more so interested in what drives the decision they can be harvested in MA 10 and MA 11 for that matter.
The numbers, at least to me don't justify wild coho retention in 10 or 11.
Have they just given up on mid and south sound wild coho?
If that is the case, how about giving up on wild Stilly chinook as well.
You can also harvest wild coho in MA 12 but not in MA 13.
SF
It is baffling when put that way.

The answer lies with the tribes, I believe. They enjoy the wipeout coho fisheries. They also enjoy leveraging Stilly Chinook for their own benefit. It get's back to the entirety of PS permitting and the state having little to no power. Certainly confusing.

Go Sox,
cds
 
#1,717 ·
One of the uses of coded wire tags (cwt)s to evaluate marked selective fisheries. To do so a portion of the clipped hatchery fish have code wires embedded as well as a smaller number of unclipped fish also receive code wire tags. Without those unclipped hatchery fish with code wire tags we would not have marked selective fisheries and would be fishing even less.

That center sound resident coho fishery is a classic mixed stock fishery with coho any corners of the sound showing up in the catch. In 2019 June fishery resident coho fishery the State reported 17% of the CWTs recovered were from south sound net pens, 17 % were from north Sound stocks, 1% was from Hood Canal, 1% were from BC and the rest from the Green and Puyallup basins (and associated nets). Of those north Sound tags more than half were from either the Wallace or Tulalip hatchery programs (Snohomish stock) so it wild Snohomish coho should also be contributing to the catch.

Have also heard that at some of the tribal coho hatchery production recently have not been clipped so a higher portion of the population should be unclipped hatchery fish. Also consider in an area such as MA 9 when a more or less resident population is fish under mark selective rules the portion of unmarked fish will increase over time (the regulation is working). Since MA 9 opened on the 16th my best "guess" looking at the fish checks is that between 1,500 and 2,000 hatchery coho have been harvested in 10 days.

An interesting aside in that 2019 June MA 10 resident coho fishery was that single month accounted for 11% ( 7,327 out of a total of 64,467) of the entire recreational coho Puget Sound (MA 5 through MA 13) for 2019 - from WDFW 2019 sport catch report.

Curt
 
#1,720 · (Edited)
SF-
I believe it is the case in Puget Sound that every hatchery program that is releasing adipose smolts with CWT will also release a smaller portion of unclipped fish with CWTs. For example a program of say 1.5 million might release 1.3 million clipped with CWTS and 200,000 unclipped fish with CWTs. The exact ratios may vary but if I recall correctly the release target of unclipped smolts with CWTs is in that 200,000 to 250,000. A sufficient release to assure that enough CWTS are recovered from fisheries to produce accurate run reconstruction and mark selective evaluations.

Curt
 
#1,721 ·
Jasmillo-

As you may recall folks are catching those resident fish from late fall/winter and through the summer. This year those fish were released as 1+ year old smolts in the spring of 2020 and are now in their third year of life and will spawn this fall as is normal for Puget Sound coho (in some wild populations there are some coho maturing as 4 year fish however those fish get that extra year from being older smolts and not extra time in the salt). Those resident coho that are not caught (hatchery or wild) will spawn this fall either returning to their hatchery of origin or in the case of some with extended rearing in nets pens there will be a mixture of fish returning to home rivers and others shot gunning to streams near their release site.

If there were no fishing on those resident fish most would reach maturity at pretty reasonable sizes (say 3 to 7#).

It has been my observation that the larger individuals in the resident population are the more aggressive/catchable fish thus our fishing tends to select for the larger fish those eliminating many of those fast growing fish and as the season progress as those small fish grow they enter the fishery at increasing rates. Two net effects of this; 1) we see few of the fish that would show the full growth potential of that life history and 2) the fishery assure that hatchery brood stocks for at least that resident life history have experienced selectivity against those faster growing fish.

Curt
 
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