blackmouth opened, and I saw a lot of trailers in the Kingston parking lot. Seems a lot of our post are political these days, how about getting back to some fishing reports?
Please share some good news to kick-off 2019!

I saw a good number of boats out in MA 11 on Sunday and a fair amount in MA 10 on Tuesday.
Have seen quite a few boats this winter in MA 8-1 since it opened.
People are getting out but I don't think anything is fishing great at this time.
SF

https://wdfw.wa.gov/fishing/creel/puget/

Seals suck again this year....suppose our A-10 closure in Nov and Dec made em work a bit harder, but they much prefer the easy meals they are being offered now. Winter chinook fishing used to be a nice opportunity to enjoy the fight of these prime fish, now it's just a race to get em in the boat....you fight em and almost surely you lose em. KATS.

Well, I saw one of those hard working seals this morning with a nice fresh fishy in his mouth in MA 8-2 and no boat in the vicinity. Now that I think about it he was a looking a bit fatigued....

I am sure that seals can catch Salmon that are not being slowed down by dragging a line it's just that I have just not witnessed it, but I do know that I have seen many sea lions thrashing Salmon to pieces that were unencumbered by dragging a fisherman's line.

Once when jigging out of my Sealaker at the Claybanks near Defiance Pt. I had a seal pup come up behind my transom so close that I might have been able to touch it with my hand, he was dragging a Dodger and Flasher. I immediately wanted to clobber it, but then I wanted to help it, or perhaps I just wanted that gear.

8-1 and 8-1 were at 29% of their encounter rate on Dec. 30. NOP PSA members fishing MA 9 at Mid-Channel took a number of fish up to 11 lbs. We're looking forward to our MA 6 opener on Feb. 1.

I've been itching to get out on the Sound. After the closure of certain rivers and the poor hatchery steelhead returns, I gotta get some time on the water soon! I think I'm going to prep the boat this weekend for some possible nice weather winter days.

Interesting segment on last night's Evening Magazine (King 5). One of the hosts was talking about going train watching with his son and they had video clips and pictures of a huge sea lion in the river eating a huge wild steelhead. The host was very astonished how far upriver the sea lions were.

Interestingly, the host mentioned how the sea lions have been having a detrimental effect on the orca population.

I know they're just words, but these are words that are starting to become more common in news outlets which will hopefully change the public's perspective of the seal and sea lion issue.