09/06/2022

Fished 4 1/2 hours on 9/05. Hold over tide, 5 bank fishers and me in my boat. There was not a jack bite for any of us..... no bite for an "old man" on his 82 birthday.

The bottom of the river is full of the "green, stringy moss/grass", even with a float you get that crap on your eggs......

There were a few other boats, only because of the "hold over tide". 2 of the boats were using spinners, no fish.

Where I park my boat, I can see some prime water that would normally have fish sometime rolling, nothing in that whole time on the river...... grrrrrrr

Will try again, this afternoon, terrible tide but "oh well"....

Weird. Seems like nothing anadromous is moving into the rivers, to include searun cutthroat. I normally have good success fishing for those this time of year (with the odd, incidental salmon jack mixed in), but the two times I've tried this year, I've been skunked, save for a couple dink coho smolts. This despite the fact the river levels are above normal for this time of year.

I suspect water temperature is the big issue right now. The hot weather we had all summer seems to have heated up the water more than usual. I know this effect is much less in the tidewater, where the ocean water keeps things cooler, but it stands to reason that if a higher volume than normal of water that is warmer than normal mixing in that brackish water, the overall temperature should be higher. I don't know if that's true, of course. Just throwing something at the wall of mystery.

My hopes for a good late September in the tribs are starting to look bleak. When I checked the extended forecast Friday, it looked like we were going to start seeing some rain as soon as next week. Today, we're back to nothing but way too hot and dry for the foreseeable future. If weather is to blame for the slow start to jack season, there's no relief in immediate sight, so let's hope it's just the fish being late....

To add to the mystery every year schools of 3 to 5 inch bait fish of some sort show in the river ranging from very large, darn near bank to bank, schools to more modest size. Birds go crazy and everything that eats fish goes at it. This year just nothing! Just beautiful scenery with Seagulls scrapping around. I have to agree this is beyond strange.

I am beginning to wonder if we have a dissolved oxygen issue? Low DO and fish just don't care for it as they like to breath just in water.

Maybe the showery days next week ( supposed to add up to less than a half inch ) will bring with it a barometer drop that drags some in. After that I am designating myself clueless!

No shortage straight out around 270. Big brutes stuffed with herring. We’ve been blanked twice now outside 3 and 2. I wouldn’t worry yet the volume and quality of the fish in front of the river is encouraging. The 6 we kept Saturday 5 were hatchery 8/9 lbs. eggs were still on the tight side.

my neighbor fished out behind Lakeside this morning.. nothing didnt see anything jump or roll..

he did see one of the Quins tying up a big orange float.. so they must be going in this sunday?

Likely just setting up anchors and floats for the net. Best I can tell they go in at noon Sunday in week 40. That is the 26th of Sept.

I haven't been keeping up with the day to day numbers but more of the 30,000 foot view. We moved to our current house on Budd Inlet in '15. Starting in '16 we annually had a Squaxin gill netter getting Chinook. Sometimes it was so good that one night filled a tote from a small net. This year, so far, have had them out here only one night. Perhaps i am too much of a pessimist but stuff doesn't look good coastwide.

9/06/2022

Chehalis River, above Monty----2 boats, no bank fishermen.......2 1/2 hours, no jacks, watching for jumping/rolling fish, nothing, zero, naught a.

On way to my take out place, checked, with my fish finder, 2 of the places that normal hold fish, no marking at all.......something is very wrong, wrong, wrong.

I haven't been out on So Sound this year, but a friend of mine, a good fisherman, has been doing really well. It's his opinion that this is the best season in many years. Also, another friend has been doing really well on silvers in the ocean out of Westport - nice healthy fish. Maybe the silvers are predominately Columbia River? Satsop has a good prediction, etc. My guess is fall fishing is going to be good.

Same deal snooping around for late summers in the lower nooche. Not worth the sunburn.
Sent you a pm drifterwa

May be right Tug. I mean Bristol sockeye were bonkers and Kenai not too bad. But Chinook sucked quite a bit. It's good to see healthy fish but again , there are lots of reports of fish being small for age. Fat, but small.

As runs continue to decline, every year I hear someone say “it’s the best year in a long time”. I think it has a lot to do with technology.

Must have been warm water. I saw an SST graphic from a few days ago that showed extremely warm water all along the coast. Today, the same graphic shows COLD surface temps nearshore, so if that was the issue, I think we'll start seeing some fish in the tidewater this week. Wishful thinking?

09/07/2022



I think it has a lot to do with a persons age....if you're not very old then the days of before the Boldt Decision you don't know, 3 steelhead limits on the Humptulips, Native steelhead of +25 pounds were taken every year...Hoh, Queets, Humptulips, Wynoochee, Chehalis, Satsop.

275 charter boats used to fish out of Westport, some charters could get 1-3 trips a day. Sport fishermen could get a special license that allowed them to fish in the ocean and sell any salmon they caught.

My biggest steelhead was caught on the Queets, during spring vacation, so April, and that fish was 26+ pounds, weighted by a tribal bio.

Grays Harbor used to have Steelhead Derby's, caught a 23# 11 oz. and NEVER Placed in the derby.

Will the big native steelhead rebound?????? Will the 50# Chinook be sport caught on local rivers, they were, but I don't think so now.

Coulda, shoulda, woulda, but it seemed like the days of 60's, 70's would go on forever,,,,,NOT!!!!!

You observations are correct flea. Out on the halibut hump the water was 62, we finished up with the flatties the deployed the tuna jigs and caught albies in that area. We we in 63 degree water out 40 miles. As we ran in the surface sea temp plummeted almost 10 degrees. As I mentioned earlier there’s no shortage of large healthy silvers at 270 fow where we tagged 6 in a couple hours. With the number and health of kings and silvers this year I can’t imagine they’d not be in the Chehalis as well. Willipa bay fished pretty good the second week of august. Haven’t been there lately it I’m looking forward to a fishy fun fall.

In the 70s I believe that the recreational harvest of coho out of Westport was around 750,000.

This quote comes to mind.
"A curious thing happens when fish stocks decline: People who aren't aware of the old levels accept the latest ones as normal. Over generations, societies adjust their expectations downward to match prevailing conditions." Kennedy Warne, Nat. Geo. April 2007.

My gramps grew up and lived in Puyallup his whole life through the 20's - 1987 when he passed.
The Puyallup arguably used to be the best Winter Steelhead river in the state. I was fortunate to see the last of that and thought it was good. He did witness 84-85, which was the best I experienced. Even he stated, "close the old days". Other than that, he would tell me. "Not like it used to be". I understand now.

Called "Shifting baselines". Cuts two ways. There are quite a few species that were quite rare when I was a kid and are abundant now. But, as noted above, a whole lot of our fisheries have gone downhill. Not only do we not have people around who remember the abundance but the managers ignore the old data.

Shifting baselines and whitewashing historical data is one of the most flagrant issues concerning all of our natural resource departments and the future outlooks of the things they are supposed to manage.

Back when I worked on Fraser sockeye the first half of the weekly meetings was presentation of the available data that included current catches, test fishing, escapement estimates, and so on. It also included an historic retrospective of the runs on that particular cycle back to the 1890s. There was no way the managers could make a decision in a vacuum.