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Hello Everyone,

If you have any questions or comments regarding any of the information provided through these emails for the 2025 salmon season, please reply to this email and/or contact Barbara McClellan at #360-249-1213.

Recreational Marine Area Fishery
Since our last update, effort and catch in the Willapa Bay marine recreational salmon fishery has increased from August 18 – 24, 2025. The highest effort (in terms of vessels) and number of anglers were reported on Saturday, August 23rd, but the highest catch last week was reported on Sunday, August 24th. Last week, there were minus low water tides early in the morning with smaller tidal changes early in the week. The minus low water tides continued throughout the week, but the tidal changes increased by the end of the week, which likely moved fish around the bay. There were 97 hatchery Chinook salmon and 19 hatchery coho reported by staff caught in this statistical week 34 for August 18 – 24. There were no unmarked, natural origin Chinook retained during this same timeframe since they are illegal in this fishery starting August 1, 2025, however, there were 27 NOR Chinook encountered and released from this fishery documented through angler interviews either at the Tokeland or South Bend docks. Currently, this marine recreational fishery has accrued a total of 17 NOR Chinook impacts, or 50.7% of the preseason expected natural origin Chinook impacts for the season. As of yesterday, August 27th, this weekend will be the best tides for fishing salmon in the Willapa Bay marine area for the month, and these tides will continue through Monday, Sept 1 Labor Day. (See attachment: 2025 WB Marine Area Recreational Data & Catch Estimate Summary Draft 08.28.2025.pdf).

Spawning Ground Surveys
Staff started weekly stream surveys on August 5th below the weir in Nemah and Naselle rivers. As of this week, staff have observed several hundred live Chinook staging in the Naselle River and between 1000 and 2000 live Chinook staging in the Nemah River. These counts are likely conservative as fish are in dense groups in the deeper holes to stay cool or piled on top of each other in front of both weirs. As this point, staff have not observed any spawning or redds in either of these rivers sections but have recovered several dead chinook carcasses in the Nemah River below the weir. Historically, Chinook salmon begin spawning in Willapa Bay rivers the middle of September.

Hatchery Chinook Rack Returns

Naselle River Hatchery
Salmon have been able to volunteer into the attraction channel since July 29 once the weir was put in place in the river. To-date, there have been 613 adult and 16 jack hatchery Chinook salmon volunteer into the attraction channel and recruit into the hatchery. That is 72% more hatchery Chinook salmon into the facility than last year at this same time. There have also been 19 unmarked (10 male, 8 female, and 1 female mortality) Chinook salmon volunteer into the hatchery reported to-date in the Naselle Hatchery from August 1 – 27, 2025. The 18 unmarked Chinook have been planted upstream above the hatchery. These data will be updated in the next weekly in-season email. (See attachment: Naselle Hatchery Adult CHK Summary 08.28.2025.pdf)

Nemah and Forks Creek hatcheries
To-date, no Chinook salmon have recruited into Nemah Hatchery or Forks Creek Hatchery at this point.

Commercial Fishery
The commercial fishery in Willapa Bay had three 12-hour salmon openers last week on August 18, 20, and 23 in the south bay using tangle net gear in Areas 2N and 2R. There were 517 hatchery Chinook and 2 coho landed from the fishery combined for these three days of salmon fishing last week. This catch is approximately 47.7% of the preseason hatchery Chinook estimates expected for the week. The fleet has accrued a total of 87 local, natural origin (NOR) Chinook impacts so far since starting salmon two week ago. This is approximately 29.0% of the total preseason NOR Chinook estimated impacts available for the season for the commercial fishery in Willapa Bay for 2025.

This week, there are two 12-hour openers scheduled, August 26 and 30 in commercial areas 2N, 2R and 2M (Aug 30 only) using tangle net gear in the south bay. An update from this opener will be provided in next week’s weekly update email.

As always, in-season data is preliminary and subject to change.
All data provided through these weekly email updates for the months of August and September will be posted to the Willapa Bay Marine Area 2.1 Recreational Creel Monitoring page of our website listed below.

If you have any comments or questions specific to the information provided in these emails, please submit your comments to WillapaBay@dfw.wa.gov.

Additionally, if you know of anyone who might be interested in receiving these in-season update emails or any other information staff send out regarding Willapa Bay, please forward this email and have them reply to WillapaBay@dfw.wa.gov stating they would like to be added to our email distribution list.

Thank you and Fish On! ><((((*>
Barbara McClellan


Online reference links you may be interested in:

Willapa Bay Marine Area 2.1 Recreational Creel Monitoring:
Willapa Bay Recreational Salmon Reports | Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife

Willapa Bay and Grays Harbor (non-treaty) Commercial Salmon Fisheries (Regulations and landed catch):
Commercial Willapa Bay and Grays Harbor Gillnet Salmon Fishery | Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife

Ocean Sampling Program for Ocean Areas 1- 4: Ocean sport salmon quota report | Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife