Fishing for Puget Sound’s Chinook Salmon
One of the region’s most anticipated and popular fisheries is the summer fishing season for Chinook Salmon in Puget Sound. Each marine area within Central Puget Sound has unique opening dates, season quotas and regulations, often changing from year to year in an effort to give anglers as many fishing days as possible while protecting our populations of Wild Chinook.
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Places
Admiralty Inlet & Possession Bar Chinook
Admiralty Inlet is considered the northernmost waterway in Puget Sound, as it connects Central and South Puget Sound to the Strait of Juan De Fuca and the Pacific. Every salmon that migrates into Puget Sound swims past famed Chinook fishing spots such as Point Wilson and Mid Channel Bank near Port Townsend, as well as Craven Rock off Marrowstone Island.
During the early days of the summer fishing season, these areas are the most popular in all of Puget Sound, often due to the high catch rates as Chinook Salmon are pulled in with big tidal currents.
Admiralty Inlet is noticeably narrower than Central Puget Sound to the south, where we find more great fishing spots. Marinas and boat launched in Everett, Edmonds and Seattle provide easy access to the area. Here we have Possession Bar on the southern edge of Whidbey Island, a massive underwater bank that is several miles across, hosting a dozen great salmon fishing places alone.
Across the water to the west of Possession is Point No Point, located on the northern end of the Kitsap Peninsula, and a famed place for small boat salmon mooching and shore fishing.
Admiralty Inlet and the areas around South Whidbey Island and North Kitsap Peninsula are all managed under Marine Area 9 seasons and regulations.
Seattle, Kingston and Bainbridge Island Chinook
Salmon fishing remains remarkably good close to the city of Seattle. This area hosts some of the most famous Chinook Salmon fishing spots in all of Washington State, many of which are within site of the Seattle skyline. Major marinas in Edmonds, Seattle’s Ballard neighborhood, Bainbridge Island and Kingston are the starting point for most salmon fishing trips.
You’ll find that early in the summer season most of the action happens near the town of Kingston and to the south on Jeff Head, a massive underwater bank similar to Possession Bar. As the summer progresses and the majority of Chinook return from their ocean pastures, areas further to the south become worth fishing.
Bainbridge Island has a number of great fishing spots, such as Point Monroe, Yeomalt Point, Skiff Point and Tyee Shoals. In August, Chinook will be found throughout Puget Sound, and in this area, the eastern shore also holds some good fishing for salmon making their way back to Seattle’s Lake Washington ship canal and Duwamish River. Good fishing can be found at the Edmonds Oil Docks, Richmond Beach, Boeing Creek, Meadow Point and West Point.
A special Chinook Salmon fishery opens in Seattle’s Elliott Bay during the heat of the summer, giving us a chance to catch Chinook Salmon in front of Downtown Seattle.
Central Puget Sound including Kingston, Seattle and Bainbridge Island are managed under Marine Area 10 seasons and regulations, with special fishing zones in Sinclair Inlet, Shilshole Bay and Elliott Bay.
Tacoma and Vashon Island Chinook
The areas around Vashon Island and Tacoma offer some great fishing, many of our favorite Chinook Salmon fishing spots are located next to the forested bluffs of South Puget Sound with Mount Rainier as the backdrop. Chinook Salmon migrating back to the Puyallup River, Nisqually River and to hatchery operations further south all stage and feed in this area.
Major marinas and launches at Des Moines, Redondo, Tacoma and Quartermaster Harbor are busy places on early summer mornings, as boats idle out to the fishing grounds in the pre-dawn hours. Chinook fishing occurs at Vashon Island’s Dolphin Point, Point Beales, Restoration Point and Dalco Point. On the eastern shores of Puget Sound, fishing can be good at Burien’s Three Tree Point, Federal Way’s Redondo area and Brown’s Point.
Tacoma hosts some of the most famous salmon fishing spots in the region, areas such as the Clay Banks, Slag Pile, Point Defiance all become crowded with boats during Chinook openers. Jump over to Gig Harbor and fish the flats right in front of the harbor entrance to find Chinook feeding on sand lance and schools of herring.
Vashon Island, Gig Harbor and Vashon Island are managed under Marine Area 11 seasons and regulations, with special fishing zones at Tacoma’s inner Commencement Bay.
Deep South Puget Sound Chinook
Past the Tacoma Narrows Bridge lay the final reaches of Puget Sound, often referred to as Deep South Puget Sound. This area sees large returns of Chinook to hatchery complexes at Nisqually River, Deschutes River among others. Chinook Salmon will stop off at feed in a few areas once they transit under the bridge, including Point Fosdick on the Gig Harbor side and Fox Island’s Point Gibson. By late summer, most Chinook have made their way into the area, and can be found along Nisqually Reach as well.
All of Puget Sound south of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge is managed under Marine Area 13 seasons and regulations.
Seasons
Marine Areas 9, 10, 11 Chinook Salmon Seasons
Puget Sound’s fishing seasons for Chinook Salmon has one of the highest participation rates and therefore one of the most carefully managed in the state. Puget Sound Wild Chinook are listed as a Threatened Species under the Endangered Species Act, therefore seasons are carefully crafted to give us a chance to harvest as many Hatchery reared Chinook as we can while minimizing the impact on Wild Chinook.
Marine Area 9, 10 and 11 each has specific Chinook harvest and catch guidelines in place to help manage the fishery. Often, in season management will determine whether an emergency closure is necessary to keep that balance. Our recommendation is to plan your fishing trips as best as you can once the seasons are announced, check for emergency rule changes before your tripe, and prepare to be flexible for sudden closures and reopeners.
Marine Area 13 Chinook Fishing Seasons
Historically, Marine Area 13 has had less fishing pressure and a more liberal season than the other Puget Sound marine areas, but it is still subject to in-season management. With all of these areas, it’s a good idea to check the WDFW News Releases and Emergency Fishing Rules just prior to your trip.
Gear
Trolling is a popular tactic for Puget Sound Chinook
In the Puget Sound region, nearly all new fishing boats come equipped with electric downriggers for salmon trolling. Downrigger trolling is the default technique for salmon trolling. It allows the boat to deploy gear at depths to 250’ and control the depth with ease. For the most part, salmon flashers are used as the main attractor for trolling, then a leader of 33” to 48” is used to space out the flasher from the lure.
Popular Chinook Salmon trolling lures are trolling spoons, trolling flies, anchovy or herring in a bait helmet, and plastic hoochie skirts. If you’re looking to avoid fishing with the added drag of a flasher on your line, a choked herring can be all that’s needed to catch Chinook, but the most popular non-flasher Chinook lure in Puget Sound is the Tomic Plug.
Mooching for Chinook is a time-honored tradition
One of the most common food sources for Chinook Salmon is the Pacific Herring. So it only seems fitting that one of the oldest methods to fish for Chinook happens to be a cut-plug herring, fished with a sinker and dropped down to the depths and retrieved back to the surface. It doesn’t take much salmon mooching tackle to fully utilize this technique, and while downrigger trolling has taken center stage in the salmon game, there is still a large contingent of Puget Sound salmon anglers that exclusively use this hands-on technique.
Jigging brings the action on both the pier and boats
Metal jigs are a great lure choice for Puget Sound Chinook, and considered to be a great alternative method when trolling and mooching are out of the question. The truth about trolling is that it’s a phenomenal technique and very effective. However many people don’t have downriggers on their boats, thus can’t be truly effective to get to the depths where most Chinook are found (deeper than 50’ in most areas, sometimes as deep as 200’ or more).
Mooching can be a great option, but if Puget Sound’s notorious Dogfish have moved into your fishing area, those cut plug herring won’t last long. Vertical jigging with metal jigs such as Puget Pounders or P-Line Laser Minnows can be just the ticket! Send the jigs right down to the bottom or wherever you’re marking bait and give that rod tip a swift pop-up, lifting the jig, then allow it to flutter back down. The strike on a metal jig is unreal.
Public fishing piers around Puget Sound offer a really good chance at catching big Chinook. Metal jigs from 1-1/2 ounces to 3 ounces seem to be the best option for distance casting and getting down deep enough to have a shot. We have a full list of great lures for pier fishing and a post about Puget Sound public fishing piers to help you explore your options.
Exploring and learning to fish Puget Sound’s Chinook Salmon spots
One thing that may not be obvious to a newcomer are the subtle differences in each of our fishing spots. Each popular fishing spot in Puget Sound usually occurs because of an underwater ridge, bank or bar that collects sealife based on tidal currents. Salmon are highly migratory. Baitfish like Herring are moved around by currents, and the salmon’s never-ending task it to follow the bait and keep feeding.
It’s a never ending game of cat and mouse, while the bait is obliviously being pushed around by the currents, salmon are constantly on the search for bait, and salmon anglers are constantly on the search for salmon.
Each area tends to hold salmon in different areas at different stages in the tide, and as a matter of fact, salmon with concentrate in different parts of an area not only depending on the stage of that tide, but also the strength of the currents, which vary greatly in the Pacific Northwest from day to day. Strong currents will sweep baitfish into concentrations, and as the tide softens and ultimately reverses, the “bite” can die in an instant and move to a new area.
Anglers that have spent a lifetime fishing in Puget Sound learn something new everyday, and that is one of the reasons that it is such an interesting place to fish.
I hope you found this article helpful, we at Seattle Fishing Company put a lot of pride into helping people have a successful time on the water. If you need help with gear selection, please shoot us an email or a phone call!
