I was screaming it from the roof tops about our low flows during my last week of steelhead surveys, rivers have gone nowhere but down since then.

A couple of folks asked if we have any fishing going on in the Chehalis and yes as Sturgeon fishers have been out. Bit spotty I was told but if you’re in the right spot at the right time it has been interesting. I watched one guy duel it out for about a half hour before it got loose. Judging by the splashing I observed it certainly was not a keeper for sure.

Searun not much around here. When they joined the two agencies the new WDFW dumped all the Searun programs that old game had developed so it is a limited thing now. Some of the guys still fish for them and do all right but it is specific locations. Being of somewhat sound mind the locations they fish are best left being somewhere in the basin!

As to flows most tribs and mainstem are at or near record lows. Keeping in mind that the Chehalis is rain driven not snow it is ugly but not unusual in the historic sense. 50cfs in the mainstem of the Chehalis or tribs is nothing to the big picture. Now water temperatures and DO is another thing all together. The stress on the fish is substantial and will not get better any time soon. It will more than likely raise hell with the early part of the fall Chinook but it just depends on what the fish do. In the very dry early 90s the males came a little late but the female Chinook did not leave the bay until November. It is the wait and see thing.

Pre-merger WDW had 14 bios who specifically worked steelhead and SRCT. Post merger it was 0. If it's not a salmon it's not **it.

Well, once they convinced the state and local governments that the Steelhead would be named the Wa State “Fish”, the study, protection and management of said fish was complete, and further dept support was no longer an issue...

Remember that when steelhead were important they were managed by a separate agency. Merger screwed them over.

there not important anymore cause the only ones making money off them are the tribes..and im sure the sate isn't getting any of it!!

I doubt the Tribes are making much off of steelhead. They just get in the way of salmon fisheries, here and in BC.

Probably the only place where we could have a decent steelhead fishery any more is on a stream with no Spring Chinook, a rather late Fall Chinook, and stock summers that can be 100% removed from natural spawning. Say, the Deschutes if it doesn't get too warm in summer.

On 1/29/13 Doc started this thread and I have tried to keep it all things fish in the Chehalis. A friend suggested I cut and paste my first comments so we can all ponder how much has changed and how much has not. I was told years ago that the agency resist changes by waiting for you to give up or die. Well my brother is gone but I damn well am not and some of the team ( sometimes referred to as the old gezzer group ) that has worked together off are still here. I think we still have one more good fight in us and when the GH Policy comes up renewal we will not be backing down.

My first post:

The credit for the website videos goes to Tim the site administrator. ( who recently passed away ) I am the gopher / teacher / traffic cop here as I lack the skills to do the videos. Good match really as I have 30 years around fish and the agency and some of the team have even more. The thing about it is this. I am in this for one reason, to break the continuing institutionalized discrimination of WDF&W toward the inland communities and inriver sports fisher. Hopefully in the process help the fish.

Agree or disagree to our views but I think we all can agree on this, the destruction of the resource for the benefit of 22 gillnetters and denying the tax paying citizens of the inland Chehalis Basin communities reasonable access to salmon harvest must end. The failure to allow additional fish to reach spawning areas to utilize revitalized, under seeded, restored habitat must end. The destruction of one species to harvest another must end. Simply put " the Big Lie " that WDF&W manages for anything but commercial harvest must end. It is " game on ".

Hadn't heard about Tim; sorry to hear of his passing. He was fun to work with. I remember in '81, when I was first in WDF, that I was wanting to see a pink fishery in the Dungeness. The mindset was you fish salmon in saltwater and leave them alone in fresh, even if one could easily catch them. Not much has changed.

Guess we'll just have to saddle up and keep tilting at those windmills.

Some of have been talking the weather and in the mix some things came front and center, volanoes! Why is this important one may ask? Well most do not know but Tonga near Indonesia went off underwater in 2022 and it was a biggy or class 5.7.

Tonga Eruption May Temporarily Push Earth Closer to 1.5°C of Warming. The underwater eruption of Hunga Tonga–Hunga Ha'apai sent megatons of water vapor into the stratosphere, contributing to an increase in global warming over the next 5 years.Mar 16, 2023

In 1815 a similiar event happened with a volcano named Tambora but it was a island volcanoe above water class 7 and it resulted in 1816 being called the year without summer. Tambora's ash caused a cooling of the norther latitudes in Europe and North America along with huge disruptons in weather pattern world wide.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/weather/2016/05/26/year-without-a-summer-1816-mount-tambora/84855694/

https://www.foxweather.com/extreme-weather/tonga-volcano-eruption-warmed-planet-oppenheimer

As the link provided Tonga was different as it put an unbelievable amout of water vapor into the upper atmosphere which results in a warming not cooling. As in all things enviro it is difficult to sort through the political climate BS but from what I can cleam out of it in Jan. 2022 Tonga went off and our wether patterns are going to be completely screwed up. So this warm period we are in is likely to last until 2027. Everything I have read said weather patterns in the land mass first ( for the coast and Chehalis warm ) but the effects oceans trail the land.

The opinions are all over the board but Tambora similiar in size cooled with dust. Tonga was similiar in size but underwater and put up water vapor 35 miles up and it will cause a planetary temperature bump. I was hoping for a wetter summer pattern but it looks like warm and dry summers.

This is important for fish because this 4 year window remaining is likely to be just terrible for salmonids. If it effects the Nino's like some say I think a friend of mine from the 70's enviro movement captures it with "salmon have a sh-- storm coming".

Little history: https://www.livescience.com/planet-earth...ecorded-history

I'll have to look that up. Have a friend that thinks a lot of our recent more or less local issues in the ocean are due to the volcanic vents along the coast.

Sorry to hear of Tim's passing (may he rest in peace). We lost one of the few, remaining advocates for salmon there, and he being your brother, well, Sir, I can only express my deepest condolences.

Thanks again for all you and your late brother have done for the cause. I know I'm not alone in expressing my fondest gratitude....

I would like to add about Tim that he was the first person I have worked with who truly put the fish first. He wasn't there to catch more fish, he was there to have more fish. On the Grounds. It was a pleasure trying to help him out with that.

Many did not understand Tim but I think you guys captured it. Many did not understand him most certainly in the Willapa processes but it really is simple to grasp what pushed him down the road. You see he was one of the pesky idealist who really believed if it was said fish come first that is what happens. Well now in Willapa the fish come first seldom if ever comes to pass but he never gave up! That is the problem with idealist they just do not ever give up and to the very end he would not except the duplicity of WDFW. Yes you can say he wore the moniker "pesky idealist" with pride!

One thing that struck me while in management of fish is that you really can't call yourself a manager until you are willing to work against the fishery you prefer. Tim pushed for that.

As summer goes on it is good to see some of the guys getting boats out of storage and swing by on the river, good to see you guys! Otherwise the flow thing is stable be it really low flows across the board tribs and all.

Now for something different. All spring and into summer it was different with birds otters everything just not being around like they normally are. In the last 10 days or so that has changed dramatically. Herons, crows, geese, flocks of small birds, otters, seals even a seal lion or two have been all around the island at the house. No idea why all were mostly missing for several months but something sure changed! The river is a bird watchers paradise in the mornings to say the least. Otters and the dog have been at about every day over just who owns the dock! In fact I have darn near walk right up to them to get them to move and then they pop out of the water chattering away at me and as soon as I go back up the ramp they are back on the dock and it is dog vs otter all over again. Also I have seen summerun jumping which is unusual also.

Whatever is going on the birds and critters are loving the river right now and that is rather nice after the miserable spring and early summer!

Almost forgot the above average temperatures are supposed to continue through September and into the first part of October. Not much rain in the forecast but forecast are always a crap shoot. We will have to see how the fish and rain timing works out but if anything like the last three years who knows.

This summer has brought a few surprise rains. Hope it's got more in store, because if not, my not-so-brave prediction is closed tributaries on opening day, with openings occurring only after the majority of the fish are safely above harvest areas... you know... like last year.

As always, I'm hoping I'm wrong, because if I am, I'll be able to go fishing, which shuts my trap and makes me a much more pleasant person to be around in general. I was kind of a jerk to some undeserving people after we got shut down last year. I don't like being that person, but I guess I might as well admit that not being able to fish makes me a jerk. I'm preparing myself for the worst, in hopes I'll handle the news (if and when it comes) more gracefully this year....

One of the best posts here -

Well put and two thumbs up to the FleaFlicker’s last one !

Oh FF I would not beat yourself up that much. The shut down last year was the most poorly managed thing I have seen in R-6 in many years. We had a huge staging of Coho & Chinook in tidewater that took place over 10 days then just in mass moved upstream just prior to the QIN starting to fish. I was given a video of the Coho moving up the East Fork Satsop like a parade that I provided to staff and fishers. The shut down was about Chinook supposedly stopped / stuck and some folks targeting them for C&R. The Chinook were not stuck due to flows but simply moving and stopping moving and stopping like they always do.

Now it is true that this created a greater inriver C&R oportunity than normal but that is acceptable under the rules. The states share of Chehalis Chinook in 2022 was 2313 and total NT impacts were modeled at 616. Now that the fish moving in mass presented well above normal oportunity and was a draw for many anglers is true. All that said using the models mortalities for C&R for all NT Rec fisheries combined would have to encounter and release nearly every Chinook that returned to the Chehalis basin to exceed the states share of Chehalis Chinook with C&R mortalities! That cannot happen period put a fork in it!

Last years shut down was about the complete lack of understanding by WDFW R-6 of how salmon move in the early fall and freshwater Rec fisheries. Then this the bias in WDFW toward freshwater fisheries is always present. AK & BC take nearly half of returning Gray Harbor Chinook in any given year, the QIN tribal harvest impacts vastly exceeds NT impacts Rec & Commercial combined, and R-6 is concerned about conservation? The Rec freshwater fisher that is the villian?

FF you should not beat yourself up as inriver fishers had every right in the world to come unglued! They got screwed over by the continueing bias in WDFW toward freshwater fishers. That simple that ugly!

The first sentence of the third paragraph says it all rvrguy. So what happened with the understanding of how fish move in years past. Whole group of brand new workers or what? Shouldn't that information be known from day one?