HALIBUT FISHING OPENED today in waters around the North Olympic Peninsula, but there’s another short-lived season opening soon.
The recreational spot shrimp fishery starts Saturday with a season that compares well to previous years, at least in the northern half of Puget Sound and the Strait of Juan De Fuca.
Spot shrimp, aka prawns, are the largest — averaging 8 to 12 inches long — of more than 80 shrimp species in marine waters off Western Washington.
Most can be found at depths of 50 to 300 feet.
Sport and non-tribal commercial fishermen split a 300,000-pound spot shrimp catch quota with 70 percent going to the sport fishery. Tribal shrimpers have a 300,000-pound catch quota.
Large catches in south Puget Sound last year have trimmed some of the days off this season for shrimpers.
But catch totals were a little down last season, particularly in Hood Canal.
Thankfully, test fisheries conducted by the state Department of Fish and Wildlife this spring have shown more abundant shrimp populations.
Test fishing showed an average of 7.9 pounds in northern Puget Sound (Marine Catch Area 9); 7.8 pounds in central Puget Sound (10); 7.3 pounds in south-central Puget Sound (11); 7.6 pounds in Hood Canal (12); 3.6 pounds in southern Puget Sound (13); 2.7 pounds in Discovery Bay (part of 6); 5.6 pounds in San Juan Island West; and 5.3 pounds on east side of Whidbey Island (8-1 and 8-2).
Two of the best areas for shrimping are found right here. The Hood Canal Shrimp District (Marine Area 12) will be open from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday, Wednesday, May 10 and 17 and Saturday, May 20 and the Discovery Bay Shrimp District (Marine Area 6) will be open from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday, Wednesday, May 10 and 17 and Saturday, May 20.
The Discovery Bay Shrimp District comprises the waters south of a line from McCurdy Point on the Quimper Peninsula near Port Townsend to the northern tip of Protection Island then from the western end of Protection Island to Rocky Point on the Miller Peninsula and all the waters of Discovery Bay.
Marine Area 9 (Admiralty Inlet) has a short season, opening Saturday from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. and again Wednesday, May 17.
Marine Areas 4 (east of the Bonilla-Tatoosh line), 5 (Sekiu) and 6 (excluding Discovery Bay Shrimp District) are open daily beginning Saturday. The recreational spot shrimp season closes when the quota is attained or Sept. 15, whichever comes first.
In areas 4, 5 and 6 start times will be one hour before sunrise.
In all areas of Puget Sound, shrimpers are limited to 80 spot shrimp per day during the month of May.
A valid 2017-18 fishing license is required to participate in the fishery.
Columbia River troubles
Historically low returns of spring chinook to the Columbia River may signal issues for the Pacific Ocean chinook fishery off La Push and Neah Bay this summer.
I don’t like writing that sentence as I have plans for some chinook fishing off Neah Bay and I would like to bring home a cooler packed to the brim with king filets.
The 3,347 adult spring chinook counted through last Sunday at the Bonneville Dam is a new record low. The previous record low was 5,770 fish in 1949.
Quilcene’s Ward Norden, a former fisheries biologist and owner of Snapper Tackle Company, saw this coming.
Back in January, Norden passed along his summer salmon projections, including a warning for ocean-going anglers.
Norden warned that anglers looking for kings off Pacific Ocean (or nearby) ports like Neah Bay, La Push or Westport may run into trouble this summer “since the vast majority of those chinook come from the Columbia plus Snake Rivers.”
“It could get ugly in the Columbia River this year for the runs dominated by chinook under 25 pounds,” Norden said.
Norden thinks the paltry returns will have terrible consequences.
“Unless we get a huge “slug” of fish over Bonneville in the next two weeks, we are looking at a collapse of catastrophic nature,” Norden wrote last week.
None of this is good news, but the small silver lining is these low returns have little to do with salmon coming back to the Strait of Juan de Fuca and Puget Sound.
“Our area is a marine ‘microclimate’ that is fed by nutrient-rich deep ocean currents feeding the ecosystem all the way into the far southern Sound,” Norden said.
Norden said that river of deep ocean water was only recently discovered.
“I always knew it was a richer ocean environment here than on the outside but always figured it was Victoria dumping raw sewage into the Strait,” he joked.
“This river of seawater is the reason next winter’s blackmouth fishery will be so good and the 2018 and 2019 king runs will be spectacular if the peasants like me are allowed to fish for them.”
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Sports reporter Michael Carman can be contacted at 360-417-3525 or mcarman@peninsuladailynews.com.
