Salmon species in Puget Sound provide essential ecological and sociocultural value but are increasingly threatened by climate change, habitat alteration, and shoreline development. Small tidal embayments, or barrier estuaries, play a critical role in supporting juvenile salmonids by providing non-natal rearing habitat, particularly for populations that remain within local basins in south Puget Sound. Degradation or loss of these habitats can therefore have disproportionate consequences for salmon recovery. Whiteman Cove, a 29-acre brackish lagoon historically connected to Case Inlet, was isolated in the 1960s by construction of a road and tide gates, resulting in decades of restricted tidal exchange and limited fish passage. Although tidal restoration is increasingly used to address these impacts and improve habitat conditions for species such as juvenile salmon, many restoration projects lack sufficient post-project monitoring to evaluate ecological responses and overall effectiveness. The Whiteman Cove restoration thus represents an opportunity for the Washington Department of Natural Resources Aquatics Division to both reestablish tidal connectivity and to develop and evaluate a suite of monitoring tools, using salmonids, associated fish assemblages and habitat conditions as indicators to assess restoration outcomes and inform future nearshore restoration efforts. This presentation will cover an integrated set of monitoring tools (seining, sediment collection, quadrat sampling, GIS) and the first 1.5 yrs of data collection.