Puget Sound Fisheries

A Dungeness crab.

By Mark Edward Nero
mark@maritimepublishing.com

Puget Sound isn’t just one of the more vibrant commercial fishing areas on the West Coast, it’s one of the more vital ones in the U.S. as a whole.

And no wonder: the species typically open to commercial fishing in the area include Dungeness crab, salmon, herring, smelt, shrimp and squid.

The region, located on the northwest coast of Washington state, is home to a commercial salmon fishing fleet that includes purse seiners, gillnetters and reef netters.

And even though some seasons are negatively affected by factors like poor fish stock, climate change and environmental regulations, Puget Sound continues to play a very important role for America’s fishing industry.

And with that being the case, here’s a look at the recent past, present and near future of the region’s two largest, most lucrative commercial fisheries, crab and salmon.

Crab Season

On Jan. 15, Washington’s commercial Dungeness crab season opened from Klipsan Beach on the Long Beach Peninsula south to Cape Falcon, Oregon, including the Columbia River and Willapa Bay.

As of the time of publication of this article, an opening date was still pending for the rest of the state’s Pacific Coast.

The fish and wildlife departments in Washington, Oregon and California all coordinate season openers each year as part of a tri-state agreement to cooperatively manage the West Coast Dungeness crab fishery. Opening dates are based on test fishing to determine crab condition.

Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) fishery managers sample crab from October to January each year in Westport and Long Beach. Meat recovered from the crab must reach at least 23% of the total body weight before Washington’s season opens. 

The threshold indicates a crab has molted, or shed its old shell and developed a hard shell, and that it will be in marketable condition with greater meat quantity and quality by the season opener.

“Meat recovery is closely tied to the crabs’ molting cycle,” WDFW Coastal Shellfish Manager Matthew George said. “In recent years, crabs along Washington’s coast have been molting later, resulting in delayed season openings.

“The crab we sampled in Westport reached 23% meat recovery in mid-December, while the Long Beach crab did not meet that threshold until early January,” George explained.

The Dungeness crab is found in commercial quantities from the Aleutian Islands in Alaska to central California, got its name from the Dungeness fishing village on the Strait of Juan de Fuca in Washington where the first commercial fishing was done for the species.

The Dungeness crab fishery is said to be the oldest known shellfish fishery of the North Pacific coast. The value of state landings for the 2023-24 coastal commercial Dungeness season was $66.8 million, surpassed only by an $88.2 million record set during the 2021-22 season, according to Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife data.

This is despite the state commercial crab fleet being limited to about 250 licenses. No new licenses have been issued since 1980, and as of 2019 the state commercial fishery was comprised of 132 crab fishers holding the 250 licenses, according to Fish and Wildlife.

Requirements

Those participating in the fishery south of Klipsan Beach or in Willapa Bay were subject to reduced pot limits. Fishers with permanent pot limits of 500 and 300 were allowed to use 400 or 250 pots, respectively.

Unused buoy tags were prohibited from being attached to crab gear and had to be onboard any participating vessel until the temporary pot limits are lifted on gear set day for the north of Klipsan opener.

Vessels are prohibited from storing or possessing crab pots on board in excess of the vessels pot limit more than 48 hours prior to pot limits being lifted.

Other requirements include:

  • A hold inspection certificate number is required on all fish tickets until further notice.
  • All vessels must have a qualifying electronic monitoring system installed, activated, and transmitting data to the Pacific States Marine Fishery Commission (PSMFC) before participating in the coastal Dungeness crab fishery.
  • Each crab pot must be rigged with line that is marked in two places with 12 inches of red, no more than one fathom from the main buoy and no more than one fathom from the pot.
  • License owners or alternate operators must register one unique buoy color scheme annually using the WDFW online registration form. Those without a smartphone or are unable to complete the registration, may contact Jamie Fuller at Jamie.Fuller@dfw.wa.gov.

Molt Timing

In related news, state Fish and Wildlife has been investigating whether changes in molt timing are linked to broader climate trends. Improving the fishery’s climate resiliency is part of the updated Coastal Dungeness Crab Policy, which the Washington Fish and Wildlife Commission approved last October.

Other policy updates include addressing the risk of marine life entanglement in crabbing gear, focusing on humpback and blue whales and leatherback sea turtles.

Fish and Wildlife has said that it’s developing a conservation plan and seeking an Incidental Take Permit under the federal Endangered Species Act. 

More information about the state’s coastal commercial Dungeness crab fishery is available on the WDFW website. And more information on the upcoming season and a recap of the previous season is available in the 2024-25 Washington Coastal Dungeness Crab Fishery Newsletter.

Salmon Fishery

The 2025-26 commercial salmon fishing season, developed in part by Fish and Game, isn’t expected to be set until the spring by the Pacific Fishery Management Council, but forecasts of salmon runs are expected to be developed and released in the late February/early March timeframe.

Draft regulations are due around April/May, and final state fishing regulations for the season are anticipated to be adopted sometime in June.

In 2024, the commercial salmon harvest in Puget Sound was 9.19 million fish, which was 61% of the total harvest, according to data. The total harvest also included 5.83 million fish for hatchery cost recovery and broodstock.

New Laws

On Jan. 9, the Washington State Board of Natural Resources announced that it had adopted a rule officially prohibiting commercial finfish net pen aquaculture on state-owned aquatic lands.

The action comes more than seven years after the collapse of a net pen array off Cypress Island released over 250,000 Atlantic salmon into Puget Sound.

“The crisis of our Puget Sound and salmon and orca populations calls for avoidance,” Public Lands Commissioner Hilary Franz said. “Avoidance is our legal and moral responsibility.”

The rule applies only to commercial net pen fin fish aquaculture and not to hatcheries that restore or boost native stocks.

Commercial finfish farming operated in marine net pens in Puget Sound for more than 40 years on aquatic lands leased from DNR. After identifying several violations of those leases, Franz terminated the last leases for finfish net pen aquaculture facilities in November 2022.

The last were removed in the spring of 2023.

Also, as of Jan. 1, 2025, boats in Washington waters, including commercial fishing vessels, must stay 1,000 yards away from Southern Resident killer whales (SRKW) at all times.

The new rules, passed by the Washington State Legislature, are intended to reduce vessel noise and allow the whales to forage and rest with minimal disturbance.

According to Fish and Wildlife, the busy waters of Puget Sound pose a significant threat to the endangered population of orcas, which relies on echolocation to hunt and communicate.

Vessels reducing noise by staying farther away effectively makes more prey available to the whales by making it easier for them to find and catch salmon, Julie Watson, the killer whale policy lead with the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) said.

Under the law, all vessel operators must stay 1,000 yards (one-half nautical mile) away from SRKW in all directions. If whales approach within 400 yards of the vessel, pilots should disengage the transmission until the fish moves away.

Pilots who think they may be closer than 1,000 yards, but not within 400 yards, should attempt to navigate out of the path and away from the whales at a speed of 7 knots or less, Fish and Wildlife says.