Pink salmon bumper crop headed for Puget Sound; sockeye bonanza to upper Columbia

As chinook, sockeye, chum and coho salmon runs pour into Washington waters this season, pink salmon will be the most plentiful people pleasers in the Puget Sound and Strait of Juan de Fuca areas.

“The pink numbers this year are very similar to two years ago when we ended up with a return of about 8.7 million (more than 6.2 million was preseason forecast),” said Aaron Dufault, Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife fisheries biologist.

Pink returns have remained big since topping 10 million in 2009. The fishery provides excellent late-summer opportunities for both boat and shore-bound anglers in Puget Sound and local rivers.

The highlight is the Snohomish, which has the largest forecast of more than 1.6 million pinks, followed by the Nisqually, with 979,298.

Other rivers with decent returns are Puyallup, 837,967 pinks; Skagit, 603,385; Nooksack, 281,979; Stillaguamish, 210,062; and Green, 626,102.

In the Strait of Juan de Fuca, a whopping 1.3 million pinks are forecast to return to the Dungeness River.

There won’t be a pink fishery in the Dungeness River because of issues with poor chinook returns, but Dungeness Bay will be open for pinks.

The Dungeness Bay pink season runs July 16-Aug. 15.

For the first time in 22 years, Hood Canal north of Ayock Point will open July 1 for a pink-directed fishery. For the Puget Sound interior, the pinks arrive in mid-July and peak in mid-August. In southern Puget Sound, the last week of August and early September are usually best.

Hatchery chinook and coho fishing opens July 1 in the Strait of Juan de Fuca from Sekiu to Port Angeles.

In northern Puget Sound, the hatchery-marked selective chinook fishery will open July 16-Aug. 15.

Sockeye salmon will be a hot attraction for river anglers all the way up the Columbia to the Brewster area.

The Columbia River forecast calls for 392,200 sockeye. Of those, 285,500 are bound for Okanogan River offering the prospects for good fishing action between Wells Dam and Brewster. Lake Wenatchee will probably open sometime later this summer.

“We are setting up for another warm-water year in the Columbia, and that creates a thermal barrier keeping sockeye and chinook from moving upstream,” said Travis Maitland, Fish and Wildlife biologist. “This likely means a lot of fish will be holding for some time at the mouths of the Wenatchee, Entiat, Chelan and Okanogan rivers.”

Hanford Reach salmon fishing opened Tuesday. The Columbia season upstream from Priest Rapids Dam opens July 1.

Ocean salmon fisheries got under way last month and there have been glory moments peppered with some less-than-forgettable days.

The ocean salmon fishery for chinook and hatchery-marked coho opened Saturday at Ilwaco, Westport, La Push and Neah Bay.

The late-summer salmon fishery at the Columbia River mouth is open Aug. 1-Sept. 7, and should be lights out around the third week of August.

Mark Yuasa of the Seattle Times contributed to this report.