Northwest Fishing Reports

"Min. size 12". Daily limit 6. Up to 3 may be a combination of adult
COHO and adult CHUM. Release CHINOOK."

Does it mean you can keep 6 pinks or 3 pinks and 3 Coho?

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On puyallup river:
"Min. size 12". Daily limit 6. Up to 2 adults may be retained. Release
wild adult CHINOOK."
Does it mean you can keep only 2 pinks or 2 coho/Chinook + 2 jacks or 2 pinks + 2 jacks?

Thanks in advanced

dibando wrote: Does it mean you can keep 6 pinks or 3 pinks and 3 Coho?

Yes, either combination

ADDICT YOU ARE INCORRECT !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


NEGATIVE, do NOT I REPEAT NOT KEEP 6 PINKS!

There is NO JACK pinks..... Scenario is like this......

you catch 3 ADULTS you stop fishing..... if you catch 2 pink, then 2 HATCH OR WILD coho jacks, and 1 chum you are done fishing.......

There is no JACK PINK OR CHUM as they are a 2 year fish... If you reach your adult limit you MUST STOP fishing....

They specifically state limitations for coho, chum, and Chinook retention on the duwamish. Since it doesn't state a general adult limit, then you can keep 6 pinks if you're lucky enough to find that many worth keeping but you can only keep up to 3 coho adults/chum. Chum don't have a jack reg.

On the Puyallup, all pinks are adults so the limit is 2 adults. You can retain Chinook or coho jacks til the adult portion of your limit is tagged.


All this is based on the info that was originally posted, if that info is flawed then disregard my post

spokey9 wrote:They specifically state limitations for coho, chum, and Chinook retention on the duwamish. Since it doesn't state a general adult limit, then you can keep 6 pinks if you're lucky enough to find that many worth keeping but you can only keep up to 3 coho adults/chum. Chum don't have a jack reg.

On the Puyallup, all pinks are adults so the limit is 2 adults. You can retain Chinook or coho jacks til the adult portion of your limit is tagged.

This is correct. What's really interesting is that 326,000 pinks forecast for Puyallup, vs 119,000 for the Green, yet Green retention is potentially 3 times that of the Puyallup.

I didn't see any adjustments to the daily limit for pinks this season.

spokey9 wrote:I didn't see any adjustments to the daily limit for pinks this season.

I found this odd too. Really expected the rules to change for the green this season in accordance with the other river and MA changes.

spokey9 wrote:I didn't see any adjustments to the daily limit for pinks this season.

They did make an adjustment, the "bonus bag" of 2 additional pinks was removed.

http://wdfw.wa.gov/news/apr1117b/

Only in the salt and the Puyallup. The sky and green are still running 3 and 6 respectively even though the returning numbers are way down. Kind of odd the dept didn't cut retention numbers across the board. To put the returning forecast in perspective, during the last few seasons the green, sky, and Puyallup would've been each forecasted return numbers about what the entire sound is forecasted this season.

Green/duwamish Pinks are a interesting example of how fast runs can change under the right conditions.
Runs were so small by the mid nineties that they did not even include them on the map in this Pink Salmon study:

"Pink salmon apparently occurred historically in the Green/Duwamish River system in Puget Sound; the Washington Department of Fisheries (WDF) (1916-64) reported these fish as very scarce in the Green River, and absent from Burns, Newaukum, Spaight, and Soos Creeks. The highest annual number of adult pink salmon observed in the Green River over the last several decades is 13. Up to 16 adults have been observed in the Cedar River in the Lake Washington watershed, but these are believed to be strays (J. Ames - Footnote 13)."
https://www.nwfsc.noaa.gov/publications ... pwash.html

Several cycles later they were returning in the millions. Wdfw hates out of control wild salmon spawning, so they have tried a 6 fish sport limit combined with tribal nets to teach these fish a lesson.

spokey9 wrote:Only in the salt and the Puyallup. The sky and green are still running 3 and 6 respectively even though the returning numbers are way down. Kind of odd the dept didn't cut retention numbers across the board. To put the returning forecast in perspective, during the last few seasons the green, sky, and Puyallup would've been each forecasted return numbers about what the entire sound is forecasted this season.

I'm pretty new to salmon fishing, but the perception I keep running into, is just how poorly the fishery is managed by WDFW. Your replies only seem to validate that perception. Appreciate the feedback. Lots of fishing wisdom here.

While I'd like to blame it all on the dept, it really ain't all their fault. Pinks are a boom or bust run size. Because of their 2 year life cycle their numbers can vary a lot. In 2013 we had a rough winter on some systems that limited outgoing smolts and those fish ran into the blob off of Alaska. Which lead to the smaller​ fish size and numbers returning in 2015. The vast majority of hens I hooked or seen in 2015 were well under 5lbs and most closer to 2lb. These smaller hens lay fewer eggs and is more than likely the biggest factor in the smaller run this year. The upside is the fish are much bigger this year and the larger hens might provide a bigger run in '19.

Also the big runs of '09 - '13 are a fairly new phenomenon in recent history. Most of the pink runs I fished growing were quite a bit smaller than this years. So it's hard to tell if this years is a return to the previous norm or just a hiccup from bad conditions the past couple years. The dept could do more to help with a limit reduction or just closing more areas to provide a bigger number of fish on the gravel. It's hardly all their fault though. Plus you have commercial netting on our fish in outside of state waters, tribal netting in the sound & rivers, in state commercial netters, and of course people taking well over their limit or mishandling fish to be released. Way too many variables to blame just one entity imo.

machewbacca wrote:

spokey9 wrote:Only in the salt and the Puyallup. The sky and green are still running 3 and 6 respectively even though the returning numbers are way down. Kind of odd the dept didn't cut retention numbers across the board. To put the returning forecast in perspective, during the last few seasons the green, sky, and Puyallup would've been each forecasted return numbers about what the entire sound is forecasted this season.

I'm pretty new to salmon fishing, but the perception I keep running into, is just how poorly the fishery is managed by WDFW. Your replies only seem to validate that perception. Appreciate the feedback. Lots of fishing wisdom here.

Compared to other western state's fisheries I'd have to agree but from my limited knowledge we can thank the Boldt decision for some of the problems we see today and how the states fisheries are managed. Tribal and state co-managing the states resources directly with the Federal government has hurt the fisheries overall from what I can gather.

While I haven't fished the green this year I can tell you that there is no shortage of pinks on the snohomish. Can't say for sure but it seems like it was undeforcasted and the fish are showing up in big numbers. Like I said I'm not a biologist and don't know for certain what the numbers are at this moment but from what I can tell the pinks will do just fine