Puget Sound is truly my happy place, and I’ve been waiting for the return of the summer salmon fishing season. Today, I fulfilled a promise I made on Christmas Eve to my cousin, to take her and her family out salmon fishing. I have waited patiently for that perfect mix of easy fishing and good weather to take my cousin Jenn, her boyfriend and her son out fishing. Her son Damien was bit by the fishing bug at an early age, and had some great days lake fishing with family, but it was time to promote him to the big leagues of catching salmon on Puget Sound.
We launched early at Shilshole and ran out to Jeff Head. The mood of the boat can be summed up in two words, eager and excited! The early summer morning hours on Puget Sound truly are the magic hours. That cool summer breeze, calm seas, and the promise of a good catch. Worse case scenario is slow fishing in one of the most beautiful places on earth.
As I set up the trolling gear, I had young Damien steer the boat, pointing out where he should go. Afterall, if you have a potential deckhand, you might as well train them early! And he did a great job.
The gear was fishing for a couple minutes before we hooked our first salmon, and Damien, with the help of his paps, caught a beautiful 4 pound Coho. I don’t think I even had the chance to get that gear reset before the other side was on! We spent about an hour and a half, landing salmon, losing salmon, laughing all the way, with that beautiful frantic dance that the entire crew experiences when salmon fishing is red hot. Jenn caught a couple, Ty caught a couple, Damien caught a couple… it was a great trip!
All said, we caught our catch card limit of 6. The only disappointment of the day was that my cousin got some misinformation when she purchased licenses and was told that Damien didn’t need a license or catch record card because of his age. Fishing was great, so we most likely would’ve been able to get our 4-person limit of 8 resident coho, but live and learn. I only mention this to you at all, because it isn’t the first time I’ve heard of parents being told you don’t need a license… by the very people issuing them, but with any salmon that you want to keep, it needs to be recorded on a catch card, so they need it! But whatever, we had a phenomenal day and I was very blessed to share my passion with my cousin and her family!
It was cloudy that morning, and the Coho were swimming shallow. We caught most of our fish on an 11′ Flasher with a white UV Ace Hi Fly and a herring strip, trolled at 36′ deep. I also ran a cut-plug herring and 4 oz sinker in the prop wash and we hooked a couple on that surface rod.
Hope you all get a chance to experience this epic fishery so close to the city!
Seattle Fishing Report – June 2020
