Early June Puget Sound: Bait Balls Thicken, Coho Bite Heats Up Around Seattle

What this episode covers

Name’s Artificial Lure, checking in with your Puget Sound fishing report for the Seattle area. We’re sitting on a classic early‑June pattern. The National Weather Service calls for mostly cloudy skies around the central Sound, morning temps in the low 50s warming into the 60s, light onshore breeze 5–10 knots, and only a slight chance of drizzle. That means good chop for bait movement but still comfortable on the water. Sunrise is right around 5:15 a.m., with sunset close to 9:10 p.m., so you’ve got a long crepuscular window to work. Tides today in Seattle, using NOAA’s Seattle station as a reference, are running a decent exchange: a higher high in the pre‑dawn, falling through the morning, then a midday low, building back to a solid evening high. Translation for anglers: moving water most of the day, with the best bite windows typically the last two hours of the outgoing and the first two hours of the incoming. Recent Puget Sound reports from local tackle shops and charter skippers around Shilshole, Elliott Bay, and up toward Possession Point say bait balls of herring and sand lance are starting to thicken, and with them come resident coho and the odd early chinook. Folks trolling 3‑inch Coho Killers, Coyotes, and small spoons behind 11‑inch flashers, in green‑glow or chartreuse patterns, are picking off decent numbers of shaker blackmouth and some legal resident coho in 60–120 feet. Best hardware has been silver or green‑glow spoons and white hootchies, run 25–40 feet off the ball. Bottom fishers working the edges of Elliott Bay and along West Point are reporting solid flounder and sand dab action, with the occasional legal lingcod still coming from deeper rocky structure where season allows. Best producers here are simple: drop‑shot rigs or mooching rigs with strips of herring, squid, or sand shrimp. Lings have been chewing on 4–6 inch swimbaits in motor oil, root beer, or white, bounced tight to the rocks on the last of the outgoing. For shore anglers, local pier reports from Seacrest, Edmonds, and the downtown piers show a mixed bag: piling perch, small flounder, and greenling taking bits of shrimp or pile worms under a sliding float or on a light hi‑lo rig. Sabiki rigs tipped with a tiny piece of bait are still the fastest way to load up on herring when they slide in thick, especially right at dawn and dusk on a flood. If you’re chasing sea‑run cutthroat along the beaches, fly and gear anglers from Lincoln Park up through Golden Gardens are seeing decent action on a moving tide. Small sand lance and baitfish patterns in olive‑over‑white, or 2–3 inch soft plastics and spoons like Kastmasters and Krocodiles in silver or copper, are drawing strikes, especially on a flooding afternoon tide with a little surface chop. A couple of hot spots to put on your list today: • West Point: Work the contour line in 80–140 feet for resident coho and blackmouth on spoons and hootchies, then slide shallower for bottom fish as the tide slackens. • Possession Bar: If you’re willing to run a bit north, the bar has been giving up steady action on resident coho and the occasional chinook. Troll the edges of the bar on the outgoing with green‑glow spoons and white hootchies behind a flasher. Overall fish activity is picking up with the longer days and strong tidal pushes. Focus on bait, watch your sonar, and don’t be afraid to adjust depth often until you mark fish. Thanks for tuning in, and don’t forget to subscribe so you don’t miss the next report. This has been a quiet please production, for more check out quiet please dot ai. Great deals on fishing gear https://amzn.to/44gt1Pn

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