Archive for April, 2011

While saltwater anglers will observe the last day of their off-season salmon opportunity Saturday, April 30, trout lake fishers will be celebrating the kick-off of their spring and summer season.

The winter blackmouth fishery, which focuses mainly on feeder chinook in Marine Area 7 and several other north Puget Sound management zones, closes at midnight on the last day of April, which incidently is the last effective date of the 2010-11 fishing regulations. The new regulations year begins May 1, which is why several season citations below are tentative and won’t be official until the rules are formally announced. 

Northern inland waters fish and shellfish won’t be completely shut in during the 60-day closure designed to protect homing federally listed Puget Sound adult chinook salmon. PS lingcod should become fairgame May 1 (tentative), while the inland waters’ personal use hook and line halibut fishery has been formally authorized to start May 5. And a Puget Sound shrimping season start of May 7 also has been officially set.  

 The summer recreational salmon fishing season of 2011 in Puget Sound should open July 1 (tentative).

At midnight on the aforementioned last Saturday in April, thousands of enthusiastic freshwater anglers will be reminiscing about their first-day trouting exploits as the 2011 six-month spring/summer lake fishing season gets underway.

Lakes across Washington opening then are either stocked with thousands of rainbow and other trout species or they have sensitive naturally reproducing trout, kokanee or other gamefish. Many other Washington lakes are open year-round.

The status of one class of waters _ rivers, streams and beaver ponds _ will remain unchanged during this seasonal milestone. The vast majority of all flowing waters are closed for gamefish angling in the spring to protect young outmigrating salmon, steelhead, bull trout and cutthroat trout. Selected streams in Puget Sound as well as all other creeks (and their associated beaver ponds) and rivers open the first Saturday in June.