WILD BLOG: 2009 salmon season "a year within a year"
POSTED April 22, 2009 / 11:10 a.m.

We've made no secret on Northwest Wild Country that we're jacked up about the 2009-10 salmon seasons. What's not to like about 45-day summer Chinook fisheries in Sekiu, around Possession, and right out our studio window in Marine Area 10?

HOWEVER, as much as I've studied, memorized and re-studied the new seasons, I didn't fully understand just how much bonus opportunity we have this year, thanks to the expansion of selective fishing options from the Strait of Juan de Fuca to Olympia.

Tony "The Truth" Floor pointed this out to me last week: if you add up all the days of selective fishing that were added to Marine Areas 5 through 13, they equal ONE FULL YEAR OF EXTRA FISHING TIME.

Not two weeks. Not a month. Not 90 days.

A ...

Full ...

Y-E-A-R!

A 45-day Chinook season in Marine Area 9 ...

A matching summer king fishery in Marine Area 10 ...

Yet another 45-day season in Marine Area 5 ...

2 full months of bonus blackmouth time in the San Juan Islands ...

60 more days of blackmouth in Marine Area 8-1 ...

A month's extra blackmouth time in Marine Area 11 ...

Add it up for yourself. Two months here, a month there, two weeks there ... it all piles up.

They say that time is the most precious currency, and, if you're a saltwater rat, you were just handed a big, fat roll of $100 bills. Spend that currency wisely.

And that's not even counting the freshwater options we'll have available in '09 that weren't open in '08 (the Skagit River's historic summer Chinook re-opener, the re-opening of the Stilly and Skagit for pinks, etc.).

Go spend a little research time on the Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife's Fishing & Shellfishing Regulations & Seasons page. And get ready now to take advantage of "the year within a year" of Puget Sound fishing.

-JS