A new lower river opportunity for sockeye salmon opens Saturday, June 16, in the Skagit River from Mount Vernon upstream to Gilligan Creek (six miles above Sedro-Woolley).
The daily take home will be three sockeye (12 inches or longer) only from fishing this 18-mile stretch of river. Anglers must release all other salmon unharmed.
This opportunity lasts 30 days or up to Sunday, July 15, when the Skagit, including both this reach as well as the upriver spring chinook reach, will close to all salmon fishing until the first of September.
HUNTERS PICKED
Special hunt drawings results for 2012 are now available to check on the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife website. Go online at fishhunt.dfw.wa.gov/wa/specialhuntlookup for more information.
Hunters whose entries were drawn for their hunt(s) of choice will receive their special permits in the mail by mid-July.
COMING SUNDAY
For more details about cashing in on the Skagit's Baker sockeye and more hunting and fishing news, read the outdoors column in the Sunday edition of The Bellingham Herald.
Doug Huddle, The Bellingham Herald's outdoors correspondent since 1983, has written a weekly fishing and hunting column that now appears Sundays. Read his blog and contact him at pblogs.bellinghamherald.com/outdoors.
