For those of you who can't tolerate the crowds in Lake Washington, there is some really good salmon fishing in the Central Sound. Early saturday we caught and released seven kings up to 20 pounds, and kept a limit of nice silvers. A friend went out Sunday morning with similar results. Took the kids out sunday PM and all four of them put a silver in the cooler! Several of the silvers were 6-7 pounds and were not clipped; could these be natives in this early? With all the fish around this early, it should just get better through July and August.

So did the unclipped silvers end up in the cooler or back in the water?????

went out across from Shilshole yesterday, through the maze of indian nets, and caught 4 silvers and released 5 kings. One king was pushing 17 or 18 pounds. The herring activity was amazing, they were all up and down the rip in the AM. Great fishing with less than 10 boats out there total.

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Salmonhead - You asked for a fishing report and got one, your very welcome! Yes, the fish ended up in the cooler, legally. Part of the thrill and love of fishing for a kids is to catch and bring home their own salmon, and for three of the kids, this was their first chance. All the kings caught were released unharmed and never taken from the water, including a 10 pound fish for my youngest, whose release was accompanied by many tears.

Now as for the fin clip and the question inmplied in my original post, I have always been under the impression that native silvers do not enter the sound until mid-September (the regs are set this year to protect these!). I was very suprised to notice the intact adipose fin clip on these fish when I cleaned them. I am still unsure as to whether these fish were natives or just unmarked hatchery or Tribal stock. Does anyone have any information to help clarify this? If they are natives, I agree that they should generally be released.

Chip--I know some of the rivers I fish out on the Peninnsula, a low percentage of the silvers are clipped. Unmarked hatcheries are very common, but its the only indication to go by--visually.

Chip,
I do appreciate the report, but yes I did question the keeping of what appear to be wild fish. I was under the impression the all Coho in the State that are of hatchery origin have been clipped. They have also started to do this with nooks' also. I made an assumption (I know that is dangerous and it makes an a** out of you and me!!!) that all of the marine areas required release of wild coho, but re-reading the regs area 10 and 11 (you were in area 10 right???) does not have that stipulation. My apologies. I understand the kids wanting to keep what they caught!! Keeping or not keeping wild fish if it is legal to do so in my opinion is personal choice, what you do is your business. This is not to say that you were wrong for keeping them. Anyway, thanks again for the report!!!
Good luck and tight lines, Jeff

Chip, teach those young ones now about C&R it will pay off later we must teach our children about conserving our resources and fish...now if we could teach a few more grown ups about this we might be moving in the right direction...tight lines

where in the central sound were you fishing?

Sturza - Jeff Head