Fishing Marine Area 11

Salmon Fishing in (Tacoma) Marine Area 11

As of July 31st all of marine area 11 is open to salmon fishing with a two fish daily limit. Minimum size for Chinook is 22 inches. On Sunday 08/25/02 my son "Andy" and I tried our luck fishing for salmon in Puget Sound. We decided to rent a boat from the Point Defience Boat House for the entire day $80.00+ motor included. We could have saved money on our boat rental (about $55.00) by bringing our own boat motor but we don't have one. I know it's a little expensive but, you'll have a great time. Be sure to wear something that can stand getting wet because the swells at times have a tendency to splash you when you least expect it and is that water ever cold.

The Point Defiance Boat House is part of Metro Parks Tacoma and is open from dawn till dusk 363 days per year closing for Thanksgiving and Christmas. They stock all the things you will need for a great day of fishing and then some. So if you forget something don't worry.

Dock fishing is available at the boat house. You can also do some crabbing from the boat house if it is in season make sure to check. You never know what you will catch from the dock so make sure you have some heavy line on your reel. It's a long way to lift something from the water to the dock and I would hate to see someone's line break as they pulled up a nice fish.

The fishing turned out to be great but the catching didn't do as well. We did however get some bottom fish that we will fry up with some lemon, onion, seasoning, and butter. When we eat these fish we will no doubt think about the salmon that didn't bite that day. We had only heard of one salmon being caught on Sunday (08/25/02) there could have easily been more than that caught but we didn't hear of or see any others before we left. We were fishing from shortly after 5:00 AM until approximately 4:30 PM. We fished from the mouth of the Puyallup river down to the clay banks just the other side of Point Defiance Park.

I have seen some strange stuff in my life but this has got to be one of the strangest. This is a hand-glider with pontoons being towed by a boat. The picture next to it is the glider after it has liftoff. I'm not sure of how the landing went but it looked as though they were having fun. I hope the pontoons worked.


Well hopefully our next fishing trip will produce some better results. But no matter how lean the pickings a bad day of fishing is always going to be more fun than a good day at the office. So stay tuned for our next fishing trip I think it's going to be taking place at the Nisqually River for some late summer run Chinook.