Big smile! Jesy Howard is pretty pleased with this blackmouth she caught from Puget Sound. The fish fell for a green spatterback Ace Hi Fly tied 38 inches behind a green-glow Hot Spot Flasher. Photo courtesy of Salmon University

May signals the start of better weather, warmer temps, and also a new -- and hopefully, hot -- salmon season. For anglers living in the Seattle-Tacoma metro area, it all starts on the salt waters of Puget Sound.

STARTS WITH SPRINGERS
As any Pacific Northwest salmon man will tell you, salmon season officially kicks off with the Columbia River’s springer run, roughly from late February or early March until early May. But up on Puget Sound, things don’t get kicking until May and the first part of June, as lesser-known, and less-fished, spring kings come into the Sound, and lingcod season opens.

Local salmon guru Terry Weist knows the waters well. Over the last few years, he’s been the president of the South King County chapter of Puget Sound Anglers. So far, his biggest king from the sound is a 29-pounder.

Most anglers don’t hit Puget Sound until as late as mid-July, but Weist points out there are fish in the water well before then -- spring kings in May. “They start showing, coming through Area 10 and 11,” he said.

“These are fall-spawners, but they arrive early. You can fish for them along with blackmouth.”

Chinook fishing opens in Marine Area 11 on June 1.

“You have to remember they don’t go to the river right away,” he said. “They actually don’t spawn until fall or winter. When anglers start fishing the rivers in October, they’ll get these dark kings. Those are the spring fish that have been in the river system for so long, and haven’t spawned yet.”

Summer kings are right on their heels. Later, we’ll get the migrating summer kings that are also fall fish, but what most guys call “summer kings.” They’re in from mid-June on, right after the spring fish, with prime time being mid-July to mid-August. Then they hit the rivers in either September or October, he said.

EARLY FISH ON THE MOVE
Most of these early-arriving fish are bound for the Puyallup River. They and their summer-run cousins come in via the Strait of Juan de Fuca, turn south at Whidbey Island through Admiralty Inlet, and travel past Elliott Bay, where some peel off for the Duwamish River.

Most then make their way further south, feeding as they go, past Dolphin Point and Point Robinson, past Dash Point and Brown’s Point in the south sound to the vicinity of Commencement Bay and the mouth of the Puyallup.

This is a good run of spring kings, “but it’s not a huge run. They’re not as abundant as summer kings, but they’re there,” said Weist. “I don’t think that many people target them. But you can fish for them while you’re fishing for blackmouth before the summer kings arrive.”

If the largest portion of the spring-run kings is bound for the Puyallup, then around that area are the most productive places to fish.

“For spring kings, in terms of top places, I’d probably stick around the Slag Pile, or Brown’s Point,” said the salmon expert. “The fish have to go around there to reach the Puyallup. You have to watch the boundaries, because Commencement Bay isn’t open until later in the season.

“Brown’s Point is right before the boundary, and a great place to fish.”