Puget Sound Fishing Report: Coho Blitz, Crab Capers, and Nighttime Surprises

This is Artificial Lure with your Puget Sound Fishing Report for Sunday, October 5th, 2025. It’s sunrise just after 7:15 this morning, and we’ll see sunset around 6:42 this evening. The day starts out crisp and cool, typical fall pattern rolling in: partly cloudy skies, light northwest winds holding at 5-10 knots, and calm seas with a slight chance of showers early, but nothing that's going to keep local anglers off the water, according to the National Weather Service. Today's tide swings are classic for working the Sound. The early morning brings a high tide at 3:49 am just under 10 feet, then you’ve got a dropping tide to a low at 10:01 am about a foot above datum. A late afternoon flood tide returns at 4:08 pm, pushing up just over 11 feet—and that’s a money window for moving fish and bait around structure. Plan your main tactics around the morning outgoing and the afternoon push, especially near points, rips, or estuary mouths. Fall has put the turbo on salmon fishing. Puget Sound Daily Fishing Report calls it out: the coho run is still hot in Area 10, silvers schooling early along rip lines and current seams from Edmonds down to West Point. Most fish are averaging 5 to 7 pounds, with a few double-digit slabs in the mix this week. The historic pink salmon returns are just tapering off, but you still might hook into a straggler if you’re tossing pink jigs at creek mouths. The Outdoor Line and local outfitters note a few chunky resident Chinook getting caught close to the bottom—legal size, but measure twice. Dungeness crab are in post-molt, settling into deeper water, especially off Kingston and Alki. WDFW recently tagged over 500 crabs in this region. If you pull a tagged one, call it in—it matters. Crabbing is winding down, so get those pots in before the season closes in the next week or so. Bottomfishers: rockfish and black bass are holding steady on reefs near Shilshole and Elliott Bay. Lingcod are closed, but the kelp beds are still producing good numbers of greenling and the odd cabezon. Best lures right now are 2½ to 3-inch twitching jigs in purple, pink, or chartreuse for coho—fish them aggressively in the upper third of the water column at first light. Small metallic spoons like the Dick Nite or Coho Killer trolled behind a green flasher are accounting for a lot of fish between Richmond Beach and the Ship Canal. If you’re on the drift or casting from shore, try a pearl white hoochie squid pattern or a sandlance imitation under a float. Live bait isn’t necessary, but if you can get herring—especially green label for trolling—run it whole or as a cut-plug behind a dodger. For the crabbers, chicken and salmon frames are outpulling everything else. A couple hot spots to target today: Edmonds Pier just before and after the tide change is putting out coho and the odd blackmouth, especially for float fishers. And Lincoln Park down south has a solid morning bite where brackish outflow brings bait in. Keep in mind those major bite ti This content was created in partnership and with the help of Artificial Intelligence AI.