A bit shorter than MA-11’s will be ?

Forecasters calling for no Pinks from the decks of recBoats this summer. Beach Walkers only perhaps.p ?....

Nice day to be on the water today, however.

I believe the delayed season targets more legal to retain size fishes that remained in the Sound. Um, handle rate was mininimal. No checker at Kingston?

I think you’ll get a normal season in MA 11 for coho and pinks. It shouldn’t be like 2023 was.
SF

Exactly who were those forecasters to whom you referred? Just wondering who had me laughing so hard it hurt.

We did great. I was happy to see WDFW delayed the opener to let a higher percentage of sub-legals escape Puget Sound and get to the Straits. Smolt/shakers are released from hatcheries in the late winter, and when the season is opened in March, they are still concentrated in the Sound. Last year they closed the season for hitting the sub-legal threshold numbers. With this year's delayed opener, we caught more legals, but hit another threshold for unclipped/wild encounters. If its not one threshold, then its another.

Our wild encounters did not seem excessive based on the apparent healthy numbers of wild/unmarked fish. And the wilds were big (10) and strong, and released without apparent mortality. My thought is "How do they estimate "wild encounter thresholds?" It would seem they'd have to estimate an existing population of wilds in the area, then base the encounter closure limit as a percentage of total population.
BUT.... What if there are more wilds than they estimated?? Then the encounter percentage would be lower, and we shouldbe able to stay on the water longer.

I think that's what happened this year. There seemed to be an abundance of wilds, and the encounter threshold ESTIMATE (%) was too low based on what I saw out on the water. In my opinion, the season could have been longer based on the health and number of wild fish available.

Not sure if what I typed makes sense, but it's what came off my keyboard and I'm sticking to it.

There is no way off knowing if there was an abundance of wild fish or a lack of hatchery fish. Lacking decent in season updates one must (I think) manage conservatively.

In area 11, are there any considerations that the white river kings are not being clipped. They are getting enough, that I would think they would be in the mix, but also, there are enough that they should not be considered against ESA impacts if hooked and released. Does anyone if these are showing up in the catch, and if so, how they are being counted?

The Sound Transit Art Program (STart) utilizes 1% of construction budgets, as identified in each voter-approved capital initiative, to bring a human scale and thoughtful detail into the large transportation infrastructure that Sound Transit builds.

If this is correct, then they have about 530 million to blow for just sound transit 3.
I believe if you look at the full amount of the system, they could have over 1.4 billion to spend on art projects for the program.


Thanks to the great voters of washington