Full transcript of “The Pink Salmon Run Is ON! Biology, Tactics & Top Spots for 2025”. Click a timestamp to open the video at that moment. Need another video? Use the YouTube transcript generator.
0:00 Welcome back to the Fishing for a Reason podcast. It's great to be back with you guys here this week. We just got back. You might have noticed that this is published a little later than usual. We just returned from a trip summiting Mount Shasta. So, literally just walked in the door. Walked in the door. Yeah, just now. Just now. So, we are sharing a little bit about some of our journey and also going to talk to you about pink salmon today. But before we get into that, I would love to know from those of you that are tuning in, we've done a few podcasts outside of the scope of Puet Sound and fishing and the Sanan Islands, like the John Mir Trail podcast. We also talked about a trip over on the Great Loop with my parents. They did that great loop a few episodes
0:46 ago. So, if you're interested in adventures like what it's like to climb your very first mountain, Mount Shasta, second mountain, we did Mount Whitney, but this one was a This was a bigger mount. This was a harder mountain like, yes, way harder. We learned a lot. And I think it would make a great episode, but I want to know, are you guys interested in hearing about something like that? It's not fishing. So, if you are interested, shoot me an email or drop a comment on this. Let us know. Yes, you want to hear the Shasta story. We absolutely will be happy to share it with you. We do other things like I did a paddle trip down the Green River back country from a kayak. That's interesting as well. If you want to hear some other fun stories, let us know and we will create that content for you guys. So, as we get started today, I also want to let
1:31 you know we have something really exciting coming up besides the fact that salmon season is opening. On July 11th, we are hosting our one and only salmon school for the year. And do you want to tell them a little bit about what it is? Yeah, it's going to be fun. Hey, we're going to get together with a bunch of people. There's going to be some people from other classes. We're going to do a few hours of classroom instruction. We're going to have gear on hand. We're going to talk about the upcoming season. We're going to have sonar Steve come in and give us he's going to talk about sonar and tell you how to find those fish with your garment electronics or any of your electronics that you've got. And yeah, it's usually just a it's a fun time. So, July 11. July 11. And right now we do have a few seats still available. So if you want access to
2:17 purchase a ticket to that class, just email us at supportanglersunlimited.co. That's.co support atanglersunlimited.co and just put in the subject line salmon school. You will also have an opportunity to book a charter in class. So, we give a heavy discount to those that are students of ours to get out and actually practice fishing because if you're brand new to salmon fishing, you can see all the things, touch all the things, but getting out on the water and actually doing it with someone awesome, makes it so much easier when you're out on your boat to physically see it. That'll be a good opportunity for you guys as well if that's something you're interested in, especially if you're brand new to salmon fishing. So, it is designed as a beginner's course, but we're going to talk about pink salmon today. because we have an opportunity to
3:04 actually target these guys. So, as we dive into that, we're going to talk a little bit about the introduction of pink salmon and their biology and life cycle and why it's so much fun to catch these guys. It's a lot of fun. And let's talk about seasons first of all and fishing reports. We slowed down since we've been gone for a week. Halibet, the dogfish really moved in the last couple of weeks. You know, obviously Lingod shut down the 15th. So, not a lot happening. We're gearing up for crab though. Halibet closed yesterday. Halibet closed yesterday. If anybody went out the last week, I'd like to hear if you had any success or if it was just a ton of dog fish. But that's where we're at. The oceans have opened up for salmon. Been seeing some fish caught up north in Canada that look pretty nice.
3:50 And out at Nia Bay as well. So hopefully that that season is off and running strong. And I think it is. So should be fun. But for the upcoming season as area 7, we've got July 17 through 19 kings. In area 7, you're allowed to keep two additional pinks. So you can have no more than two fish plus two additional pinks. You can have a hatchery clipped king and a hatchery clip coo and two pinks or four pinks if you want to do that. But we'll talk more about pinks as we get on. And then area six is actually opened up as well right now. So you can go out and fish pinks. And if you're west of Ed's hook, you can fish for kings out there right now. I haven't heard anybody. I know some people that ooze you to go out there. We have not gotten any reports though. So if you got
4:35 reports from the area 6 opener, let us know how it's going. Awesome. Yeah. And actually, this topic was emailed into us as a topic to touch on was the fact that, hey, we just want to fish for something. Pinks actually are open right now, not too far from our home waters. So talk about where we can actually target them, what it's like targeting them. And so that's what we're going to cover today, a little bit of their biology and life cycle, too, because they're a pretty interesting fish. And so I'll just dive into the pink salmon life cycle first and foremost. So to get started, if you're not aware, there are five different species of salmon in the Pacific Northwest. We've got our king salmon, we've got chum, we've got coo, we've got pink salmon, and we've got the sckeye salmon. So, we're going to talk about pink salmon because every other
5:22 year, typically on every odd year, Scott will touch a little bit more on that detail here in a minute, but every odd year, we get a run of pink salmon back. And pinks are the smaller, so they're not the smallest. Stockeye are your smallest species. Pinks are still pretty small. They average between 3 to five pounds. And then their average length is between 20 to 25 in. And these guys are quick. They spawn in the rivers. They go out to sea quickly. They aren't going to be hanging out in the fresh water for very long or in the estuaries. They're going to go out to the ocean and then they're going to return within two years and come back and spawn. And what's so cool about these guys is I believe there is one hatchery, which we'll talk about a little bit later, that does raise a very small number of pink salmon, but for the most part, all these runs are
6:09 completely wild and they're massively abundant. They're one of the most abundantly natural spawning runs of salmon that we have here in the Pacific Northwest. And you may have heard the term humpy. That's because as these guys come up the rivers to spawn, even when you catch them out here on the salt, you'll see this like humpback on the back, especially of the males. And that's how they get that name humpies. And once they're up river, that hump becomes a lot more pronounced and a lot more obvious. But these guys do have the shortest lifespan of all the Pacific salmon. Like I said, just two years. These guys are going to be feeding primarily on small fish, crustaceians, aquatic insects, and squid. And that's why you want to match what you're using to target them to bait fish.
6:56 The crustations that pink salmon are consuming is actually what gives them that pinkish color in their flesh. You are what you eat. It's just a true statement. Yeah. And when you open these things up, you can usually tell right away that it's a pink just because the color of the meat. The other thing you want to be able to do is identify a pink salmon. So to do that, the easiest way to to tell Jamie's going to pull up the sheet here. I usually tell people that the tail of a pink salmon, the spots on the tail, they almost look like they're out of focus. They're a little they're bigger than what's on a king and they're out of focus. They'll look a little bit like a king with blackish mouth and tongue and then spots all over the tail. They won't be clipped and then the tail
7:42 will have the large oval out of focus spots. And the scales on these things are really tiny. They'll like once you get one on the deck, you'll see the little tiny scales flaking off all over the place and they're just tiny like pinpoint almost size. And we'll do a quick share screen here. And you can see this is actually in last year's booklet, but every booklet has a salmon ID card inside of it. So, make sure you pop that open and find it and have it open while you're actually fishing. So, Scott can actually talk through what he's explaining to you here. Yeah. So, you can see on the king salmon on the very top picture there, this, it's probably hard to see in the picture, but top and bottom you'll have spots and they're really tiny and pinpoint and really focused. And then if you go down to the pink, which is right
8:30 here, you can see how the tail is got bigger spots and it they're like I said, just out of focus. So, let's see if we can scroll down here and get another picture closeup. And yeah. Oh, this is a good look at it right here on the right. The third P window pane on the right. You see the out of focus large spots, white gum, black tongue. So the mouth is a little bit wider than a king. If you can notice that right away, but really once you see the tail the difference in the tail spots, I think that'll be the giveaway. So look for those big oval spots. And we went over the rules and regs already a little bit. So Jamie was going to do that again. The she called yesterday WDFW to verify. The book was
9:15 supposed to publish today. They still got 2425 on the website. So don't panic when you see 18 to 20 for area 7 in there. It is 171 1819 this year and the book will be out I'm assuming today or tomorrow. They It's just the way the publishing and the rules come out and everything. It's hard for them them to get the book out on the website and get it printed and stuff. Yep. So always make sure when you are checking the rules and rags July 1st is technically the official publish date of the new book. It's also going to be updated on the app. And so if you check before that it's wrong, which is what we were doing. And I was under the assumption that the app would have been more up to-date. It is only as upto-date as the published booklet. So be aware of that when you
10:02 are planning your salmon trips that if you are looking at dates previous to July 30th, I'm sorry, June 30th, that you're going to want to go off of the proposed salmon. the North of Falcon proposed salmon fisheries and they I'm pretty sure have been approved been signed right here it is. So I'll share my screen and I you got to go to this if you Google WDFW proposed fisheries that's going to have the most up-to-date information of what most likely will be published and official. And so this list of agreed fisheries right here 25-2026 that's where you're going to view that. So, if you're looking to figure out the salmon season for next year, you got to wait till after North of Falcon
10:47 completes, which I believe is Aprilish. It was, yeah, April. So, anyway, we talked about these pinks this year, right? So, everybody's talking about how many pinks are coming back. 7.6 million, almost 8 million fish. So, that's why it's exciting because you're going to go out there and you'll be catching these things like crazy. But, one thing to think about is where are you going to go fish for them? And that was the question that come out in area six. Where are you going to go fish for them? Where are you going to fish for them in area 7? And one thing to start with is like where are they coming from and where are they going to? So 7.6 million fish for Puget Sound. That's the estimate. We're going to show you Salmon Scape here. And if you have seen some of the things we do
11:33 before, we've done salmoncape before. and we'll go fish distribution and we'll look at pink salmon odd year because that's what it is. And all these rivers that you see that are blue, that is documented. You can look at the legend here and it tells you that's documented presence for pink salmon. So the most pink salmon that are coming back, 2.5 million, they are going to Hood Canal. They're going to go down into Hood Canal. So anybody fishing down there off the banks, if you can do that, I think you can. That should be exciting. And then the other big rivers that are going to get most the brunt of the salmon, the Nquali down by Olympia and then the Pualup in the Green River down in Tacoma area. We can look at the numbers and tell you 1.8 going to the Green River,
12:19 1.5 going in the Squaly Hood Canal 2.4. And Jamie mentioned that there are hatchery pinks made in Washington. And Hood Canal, there's a hatchery that makes 6,400 pinks this year. So that's where that number comes from. So up at north here in Puet S or the Salish Sea and San Juan Islands, we've got 468,000 going back to the Scadget River right here. So down here, if you're familiar with Fur Island and the Scadget River going out through Mount Vernon, that's a pretty good return. The Stilly's got 117,000. Snowomish 315,000. So, all these fish in in in the past, most of them, it seems like they'll come right through Deception Pass here and
13:05 then they'll swim down. And I've had crazy days of fishing for these things up here by Alispit, down here by Duala Bay in literally like 20 feet of water. These fish will just be pulling up getting ready to go up the river. So, they'll be pretty easy to catch and we're going to talk about how to catch them here in a little bit. But that's just to look at the run sizes. So that's a salmon scape and where they're all going and the numbers are straight off of WDFW estimates and that's why it's going to be a fun year. So how are you catching these things? I like to you're if you're fishing for king salmon, you're probably going to catch them. If you're fishing for coo salmon, you're going to catch them. If you're catching for pinks, you're going to catch them. You're going to catch them with anything. They will hit everything. And
13:51 you if you're really want a king, you'll probably have to sort through a bunch of pinks to get to the kings. But keep at it. Go deeper. Try to get down deeper faster if you can to get kings. If you want just pinks, it's a lot of fun. Just go out and cast buzz bombs or the pink rotators that you see the shelves are just thick with them right now. And I have to say all the time really, the smaller the gear, the funner. It's kind of like fishing with for ling cod. If you catch them on smaller gear, it's a lot more fun. So taking the kids out and casting off the side of the boat with a really light like a trout rod with 10 12 pound test is a lot of fun. And then the lures, like I said, pink buzz bomb. You can buy five of those things and probably catch all the fish you need all
14:37 year. Yeah. Or even just the regular whatever you use for targeting kings, coho killers. People say the smaller the lure, the smaller the fish. It's just you can catch these pigs on big old plugs, too. They'll hit anything. You You'll catch them if you're if you're out there. Yeah. But some of the places that we're going to fish, if you're not fishing off the bank, Deception Pass 81, you can fish that. But let's look at Deep Zoom for a second. And you want to type in deep zoom over here. And we will I'll show you the area 7 area six. So area seven, you can't go wrong ever by going to Eagle Point. So between
15:23 Salmon Bank and Eagle Point, this will just be filled up with pink salmon. This year up in here, we catch a lot like I said, Deception Pass all through here off the banks around the Alpit around here to Guala Bay and then West Beach. There'll be pink salmon coming out in here and you can catch coho out here as well. It's a pretty good coho spot. So, that's the spots that I would target around here. Reef Point is a pretty popular place, especially for the king opener July 17. You'll see a bunch of boats out here and there will be pinks showing up there as well. So, that would be my big spots if I was just going to go out and, you know, play around with even fly gear. Take a fly rod out and catch some pinks
16:09 on a big pink fly, big pink or red woolly booger, but they'll be all through there. There is a closure area I think is still in effect here in area seven. You got to watch out for that. But once you get across that line at Salmon Bank, you can just kill them. Area six, I would probably go down to Eastern Bank. If I want to fish for pinks down out in area six, I would go out there. I would imagine Possession or Partridge will be a great place to catch some pinks this year, but really I haven't gone down that far. Smith Island. Somebody asked about Smith Island. You can get into area six across the line at Smith Island, too. And I think, like I said, I think West Beach will be a good spot because all those fish will be going back up to the Scadget River. So, if you think about
16:54 that line from Smith Island to the dis deception to the Northwest Treaty sign or whatever it is there on Fidago Island, this is all area six right in here. So, that would be all good spots. And just to paint a little bit of a picture, pink salmon, if you have kiddos, this is the time to take your kids fishing. There's no better way to ruin a kid's experience when it's just really slow and really boring and you can't touch anything because everything's sharp on the boat. So, if you've got kiddos and maybe it's their first year that they're old enough to get out and really have some fun reeling in fish, this is the year to do it because it's actionpacked. And so, it's really fun, especially for those new
17:41 anglers to get out there and just have success. Even adults, even adults that have never had success catching fish, it'll blow their mind reeling in their first salmon, even if it's a pink salmon. So, highly recommend, bring your friends and family out or any kiddos that you want to get excited about the sport of fishing, this is the year to do it. It's an absolute blast. And like Scott said, anywhere that we fish, you can get pinks pretty much. We'll have a harder time keeping them off the hook, but that's half the fun, too. So, it's a blast. And one other thing that we wanted to touch on related to pink salmon is now that you caught them, because you have so many of them, how do you cook them? My personal favorite way to process and cook pink salmon. Number one, they're great on the grill, especially if you do them fresh, just
18:26 like all the fish. Blame them up, cook them that day, and then you're going to have your best, most delicious experience. In my opinion, they do not freeze up as well as some of the other species of salmon. So, primarily, if we have leftover fillets of pinks, we're going to smoke them. They make great smoke fish. So, throw them in the brine. and put a whole bunch of them on the smoker and delight your friends and family with that as well. How about you? I think and before you even flay them, I would get them cleaned on the boat and put them on ice. So, gut them, then go ahead and bleed it, get the gills and the guts out of it and get it on ice pretty quickly. And I think they're they really taste pretty good, especially BGE with a little bit of smoke. Big green egg. Big Yeah, big green. We call it BG.
19:13 Big Green Egg or whatever you're using for your lump charcoal vessel. Yeah. Put it on the grill, get some smoke on them, and they're really pretty good the first day. Absolutely. Yeah. Yep. So, get out there, have some fun, and Yeah. start fishing. We cannot wait to get your guys' reports. So, if you Oh, yeah. We have a little contest. Pink salmon contest. Yeah. We want the first picture of a pink tail. So, paint the town pink. Send us a picture of a pink salmon tail with the appropriate spots in the correct fish. And yeah, we we're going to get a little little prize. Little surprise. Yep. Little prize for the first person who sends us that photo to supportunlimited.co. Let's see what we got. Yep. We're
19:59 excited to see it. Also, just send your favorite fish pickics with a bunch of people, too. Those are great. Okay, guys. We will catch you. We publish these every single Tuesday. So, we'll catch you next week, same time, same place. and we are going to be talking about our experience visiting the Bonavville Dam hatchery which was a really cool thing. So make sure you tune in to next week and we will see you there. Thanks everybody. Tight line. Bye.
