WILD WIRE: Puget Sound selective fisheries expanded; Skagit River to open for summer kings; Sekiu gets 45-day summer Chinook season
NEW April 9, 2009 / 10:30 a.m.

SAN FRANCISCO - Befitting a 25th anniversary, the 2009 North of Falcon process will go down as a memorable one for western Washington salmon anglers.

The highlights of the 25-year-old season-setting process include an expansion in Puget Sound selective salmon fisheries, and the re-birth of a North Sound river fishery that hasn’t been open to sport anglers for over 15 years.

Selective expansion: Puget Sound saltwater anglers will see a general broadening of selective saltwater fishing opportunities in 2009, under a new season structure approved yesterday at the final PFMC meetings in San Francisco, Calif. In what some sportfishing leaders are calling “the biggest advancement in the history of selective fishing”, the Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife and tribal co-managers agreed to a season outline that increases selective fishing seasons in many parts of Marine Areas 5 through 11.

"With regard to mark selective fisheries, I think this is a watershed year," says WDFW salmon manager Pat Patillo. "It's the culmination of several years of intensive discussions at a policy level, and, very noticebly, at a technical level (with tribal co-managers). At a policy level, it's amazing how pro-active the co-managers were on these fisheries. They still asked the tough questions and had concerns that standards be met, but I feel like we've been able to establish the importance of similar standards in their fisheries as well.

“On the technical level, tribal biologists have been working side-by-side with our biologists to help us re-design the way we've been sampling our fisheries. We've had a lot of new people with new jobs on our science staff working these issues, and the tribes have been right there with us, constructively engaging and assisting our staff."

The most noticeable additions to the 2009-10 regulations package:

• Area 9 & 10 summer Chinook: Central Puget Sound anglers will see a significant increase in the number of summer Chinook days between Vashon Island and Port Townsend, where last year’s 7,000-fish quota was managed under a 30-day season. Marine Areas 9 & 10 will be managed with no quota in 2009, with a July 16 opener and end-of-August closing date that provides a 45-day season on Seattle-metro favorites like Possession Bar and Midchannel Bank.

“That 9/10 summer Chinook fishery, I’m almost shocked it happened,” says Capt. Keith Robbins of A Spot Tail Guide Service, a veteran of the NOF process and one of the sport anglers present at the PFMC meetings this week. “I can’t believe we got a 45-day season and no quota. That’s going to be an incredible opportunity this summer.”

Area 9/10 operated under a combined 7,000-fish quota in 2007, which resulted in a very short summer season. That same quota was in place for the 2008 season, which ended in mid-August. And despite the lack of a hard quota in 2009, WDFW will closely monitor the fishery.

"There's some potential for some in-season management if there are some concerns about over-harvest," confirmed WDFW Puget Sound salmon manager Steve Thiesfeld.

• Area 7 blackmouth: Veterans of the old Rosario Blackmouth Derby are celebrating the new/old Dec. 1 opener of blackmouth in Marine Area 7, a date which gives San Juan Islands anglers over two additional months of winter opportunity in a fishery that has historically been one of the best producers of large winter blackmouth in Puget Sound.

“You talk to the guys who fished back in the old Rosario Derby days when it was held in December, and, son-of-a-gun, those fish are THERE,” says Tony Floor of the Northwest Marine Trade Association. “That’s a big deal for the San Juans.”

• Return to the Skagit: North Sound river anglers have been whispering for three years about a potential Chinook season on the Skagit River. Whisper no more, Skagit river rats: the Skagit will be open for Chinook Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday from July 9 to Aug. 9.

“We tried to construct a conservative fishery,” Thiesfeld says. “It’s not a long season, but it’s an opportunity that hasn’t been available for a number of years.”

• 45-day Sekiu season: Chinook will open July 1 in Marine Area 5 and the western half of Marine Area 6, and continue to Aug. 16, which translates into nearly a week of additional opportunity for anglers fishing out of Sekiu and Port Angeles.

“We have a season (out of Sekiu) that we’ve been hoping for for quite awhile,” Thiesfeld says. “We couldn’t get the eastern part of Area 6 because of continued concerns over local stocks like the Dungeness, but we have a good, solid half of the summer. We went five years with a Chinook quota and had our first no-quota-season approach, but we actually lost fishing days to accomplish the season. We got it back to a month-and-a-half season, which I think is significant.”

More to come: I'll be back later today with breakdowns of the coastal salmon seasons, analysis of Puget Sound pink-salmon opportunities, and details about Buoy 10 and Columbia River coho.
-JS/NWWC