Coastal salmon fishing opens Saturday | Outdoors

There are plenty of fishing activities to choose in the days ahead, but all eyes will be on the Saturday opening of coastal salmon fishing.

A predicted large early-chinook run to the Columbia River will fuel the ocean fisheries off Westport, Ilwaco, La Push and Neah Bay.

To get a glimpse of what's out there right now in the ocean, one needs to look no further than how the commercial troll salmon fisheries are doing.

"The Westport troll fishery is off the hook, and some of the highliners are having 100 fish days, and they're fishing in close to shore around (Grays Harbor) Buoy," said Scott Barbour, a state Fish and Wildlife coastal biologist. "They're finding fish all the way down to the Leadbetter Point area (near the mouth of Willapa Bay)."

Westport charter boats have also come into contact with good numbers of chinook while lingcod fishing.

Up north at Neah Bay, Barbour says it might be hard to know how good it will be for chinook, although the handful of trollers way out in the ocean were catching about 40 to 50 fish per day.

A better gauge might be the treaty trollers who've been doing fairly well just off Neah Bay and east to the Sekiu River boundary line.

The mark rate for hatchery chinook has been about 68 percent off Westport, and somewhat higher on the inner-western Strait area.

All four coastal ports are open daily from Saturday through June 30 for hatchery-marked (those with a missing adipose fin) chinook.

Then Ilwaco, La Push and Neah Bay reopens July 1, and Westport on July 4. Anglers should check the regulations on when each port is open during the week.

A note of caution: Anglers with boats under 28 feet that plan on fishing the ocean should check the Coast Guard hotlines for access across the bars.

The good hatchery chinook fishing in the Tacoma slowed down although some fish caught were between 20 and 25 pounds.

"I would say it is fair at best off the Clay Banks," said Art Tatchell, manager of the Point Defiance Boathouse in Tacoma. "We had one person come in (Wednesday) with a 16 and 14 pounder, and some larger fish have been caught."

Southern Puget Sound south of the Narrows Bridge is also open for hatchery chinook, and the central Sound is open for salmon catch and release. The Tulalip Bay terminal salmon fishery is very slow; check the regulations to see when it is open.

More local rivers are open for either hatchery chinook or steelhead, and the best chinook reports are coming from the Cascade and Skagit above the Highway 530 Bridge.

"I heard over the weekend there was a handful of hatchery chinook taken in the Skykomish, and steelhead are the dominant catch in the creel," said Pete Verhey, a state Fish and Wildlife biologist. "There has been a lot of angler effort, but the chinook aren't piling in yet."

Word has it steelhead returns to the Reiter Ponds Hatchery on the Skykomish have been good. The facility reached its spawning goal, which means the closed section could reopen soon.

Mark Yuasa: 206-464-8780 or myuasa@seattletimes.com