A friend of mine called and asked how did I ( and others ) know we had such substantial movement of Coho and Chinook in Sept. Well it goes like this, DW and others fish jacks and they were having a field day on some of the best jack fishing in years. So we text back and forth on what we are seeing and great for jacks few adults. By the way the jacks were down right fat!

Then out of nowhere something happened that I had never seen before. From just below Preachers to about three miles upstream the entire bloody river was full of fish. Not just a few but I could stand in my dining room on the phone and count off as high as 20 fish jumping in a minute. It was surreal and to make it even stranger guys upstream were limiting on jacks but few adults hooked. This went on for five or six days but to be honest I think I missed the start of the build up. Why did the fish stop where they did, no idea. In all my years of working with fish and fishing in the Chehalis I have never seen the number of fish that built up. Then they were gone just like that!

We had a second movement with the rain during the two week shutdown and it was also large but not fishing your left with just observation but it was way more than a few. The Chinook, just way more hooked than normal. In fact after the first movement of Coho when we got to start fishing Oct. first there were more Chinook than Coho somedays.

I am reminded of Harry's rule number one " the fish will screw you " and they certainly did that down low this year. Our loss was inlands dream come true as that fishing was as good as down low was bad. To get scales not set Coho above Oakville in mid Oct. is way past strange but strange describes this year.