This is Artificial Lure with your Puget Sound fishing report.
We’ve got a nasty one brewing. The National Weather Service marine forecast for Puget Sound and Hood Canal has a gale warning with strong southerlies building through the day, choppy wind waves and rain stacked on rain. According to the NWS Seattle office, expect winds pushing into the 25–35 knot range in the main basin with rough, confused chop. If you’re in a small boat, this is a “stay tied up or hug the lee” kind of morning.
Tides around Seattle from NOAA’s tide predictions show a moderate morning flood pushing into a mid‑day high, then a decent afternoon ebb. That moving water window mid‑flood to early high has been lining up well with the bite for winter blackmouth and resident coho the last few days. Sunrise slid in after 8 a.m. with a short grey window, and you’ll lose the light mid‑afternoon, so the prime fishing block is tight: that late‑morning tide swing is where you want to be.
Reports from local salt guys running Area 9 and 10 have been steady if not on fire: a mix of 4–8 pound blackmouth, a few bigger teens, plus some chunky resident coho and the odd shaker that needs a quick release. Most boats that stuck it out in yesterday’s pre‑frontal slop picked up one to three legal chinook, with the better scores coming from those who stayed on the bait and worked the contours instead of running all over.
Gear-wise, think classic winter Sound program. The most consistent setups have been:
- 3–3.5 inch **spoons** in glow/green, Cop Car, Irish Cream or Herring Aid patterns behind an 11‑inch flasher.
- Glow **hootchies** in green, UV white, or spatterback with a salted herring strip.
- If you’re mooching in a pocket of softer water, a cut‑plug herring still puts fish in the box when they’re fussy.
According to regional salmon magazines like Salmon Trout Steelheader, winter chinook in Puget Sound key heavily on small herring and sand lance this time of year, so matching that profile with smaller spoons and hootchies pays off. Run your gear close to bottom, especially on the edges of the bars and breaks; most of the better fish this week have come within 10 feet of the mud.
Hot spots to circle on your chart today:
- **Possession Bar (Area 9)** – Old faithful. The west side and the bar’s south tip have been giving up decent blackmouth on the flood when you ride that 90–140 foot lane and keep your gear grinding just off bottom. It’ll be exposed in this blow, so only for bigger, seaworthy boats and experienced hands.
- **Jefferson Head to President Point (Area 10)** – Closer to town and a little more tucked in. Work the edge from 120–180 feet, watch your sounder for bait balls sliding down the break, and stay on any bird life you see. Resident coho have been popping up here as well, especially when the wind eases between squalls.
If the wind is too much, don’t sleep on sheltered corners of inner Elliott Bay or Quartermaster Harbor for perch and the odd flounder on bait. A bit of worm or strip of herring on a simple hi‑lo rig will still keep the rod bent when the main basin is too gnarly.
Crab seasons are mostly wrapped or tightly regulated in much of the Sound now, so double‑check Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife regs before you drop a pot; enforcement has been active on the water.
Bottom line: if you go, go early, watch that gale warning like a hawk, wear the dry gear, and let the weather, not the bite, decide when it’s time to head in.
Thanks for tuning in, and don’t forget to subscribe so you never miss a Puget Sound fishing update.
This has been a quiet please production, for more check out quiet please dot ai.
Great deals on fishing gear https://amzn.to/44gt1Pn
This content was created in partnership and with the help of Artificial Intelligence AI