Fish the nooch today with a buddy, not expecting to catch much but we did real well.
We bank fished the lower river, between the two of us we hooked six fish but only managed to land two, one about six and the other about twelve, the ones lost were in the ten to low teen range. Is anyone catching any fish in the upper river? Any info would be helpful. I'm curious, how come we can't keep natives on the chehalis system but the indians can? Look up the fish and game site and look at the indians netting schedule and you'll see they are netting the chehalis one day a week. They'll kill more natives fish in one day than the sportman will kill in a month. Believe me I know I'm a commercial fishermen in Alaska and i've been doing it for twenty years. Give the indians more casinos and ban all Gillnets!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Look how the fisheries on the Sacramento have rebounded. GOOD LUCK AND FISH ON!!!!!!!!!!!!! Practice C&R

thats great
Man I have not heard of anyone catching any thing decent out of there all year. My dad floated the upper part and he said one dark one and thats it but its good to see that some one can get some fish out of that river

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work is for people who dont know how to fish

Havent you seen all the no fish reports on the Nooch?

Thats why you cant keep Wild steelhead anymore. wasnt too long ago that it was pretty good just like the Hump and others. Now none of theese rivers are any good. To many selfish fisherman.

I get tired of people blaming just the indians. Yes, currently they are the biggest factor. But it wasnt too long ago when sports fisherman almost made the same impact. Just look back about six years at the WDFW steelhead catch records and you will see.

The sad thing is that even with what we know today the majority of guys out there would bonk everything they cought, if they could. Some do even if they cant.

The question should not be how come I cant keep wild steelhead. It should be why can you still keep them in some places.

After all the takeing weve done its time to give back.

Steelie dave,

Not pokeing at you, just venting.

Rich G. We all need to vent sometime. Your right, we need to release all wild steelhead on all rivers in the state, that includes gillnets also. We need more hatchery steelhead (sportmen can do their catch and kill)(let the indians catch more hatchery fish to offset the money they'll lose on the wild fish)Then have only catch&release on the native fish on all the rivers also. Then we can have (maybe) a decent C&R fishery again in five to ten years. Your right about the sportmen five or six years and beyond, we did kill alot of native fish and that was to bad but know we can do something about it. We can all sit and ***** about the fishing but nothings gonna change unless we do something about it now. Your last two sentences on your reply were pretty cool!!!!!!!!!!! FISH ON!!!

Rich G. We all need to vent sometime. Your right, we need to release all wild steelhead on all rivers in the state, that includes gillnets also. We need more hatchery steelhead (sportmen can do their catch and kill)(let the indians catch more hatchery fish to offset the money they'll lose on the wild fish)Then have only catch&release on the native fish on all the rivers also. Then we can have (maybe) a decent C&R fishery again in five to ten years. Your right about the sportmen five or six years and beyond, we did kill alot of native fish and that was to bad but know we can do something about it. We can all sit and complain but nothings gonna change unless we do something about it now. Your last two sentences on your reply were pretty cool!!!!!!!!!!! FISH ON!!!

If you really want to educate yourselves and understand the reasons for the decline of wild steelhead and salmon I challenge all of you to read Salmon Without Rivers by Jim Lichatowich.

Seems to me with the low returning rate of both hatchery fish and nates. It would only stand to reason that the nets do cause grave damage, But more importantly the streams are only producing a very small amount of fertilization compared to years ago when mass amounts of fish spawned in the rivers, the decaying carcusess are very important for the entire eco-system, Which turns out to be future food for the young steelhead and salmon in the river until they Journey to the Ocean.. We need to start taking all the salmon carcusses form the hatcheries and distribut them to the river system. And then watch and see the return rates start to climb. Stream fertilazation should be major part of any club... Just my thoughts. And I have had my best year on the Nooch this year.. Good Luck and look at it RAIN..

steely i was on the lower river sat too. did you run into the game wordens. they snuck up on us and watched us from the bushes. great to see those guys out there its a long walk in. i would like to see them out ther all the time. i guess about two weeks ago there was a bunch of snagers on the hole we were fishing. did i run into you i was there with my kid 13 and my friend. we where jig fishing.

That Guy, no we didn't run into each other.
But I talked to some people who say the game warden was on the prowl,that's good because us guys who fish by the rules have nothing to worry about and the ones who don't watch out. That Guy did you catch anything? Where my buddy and I were fishing the bite didn't happen til about 9:30. I also caught one fish on a bobber, That was the first time in about 5 years. We spotted a couple of fish and could't get to them with drift gear. So I guess a bobber comes in handy. After the one fish on the bobber no more were caught on the bobber so I switched back to drift gear and preceded to hook three more only landing one.
I hope none of my friends on the cowlitz read this and find out I used a bobber because I'll never hear the end of it. Rivers are dropping and hopefully the steelhead will fall too. FISH ON !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Nice day hooking steelhead Dave. And those were indeed steelhead, not your imagination as some 'Nooch guys want people to think. While I agree wholeheartedly with C&R only on nates, and getting rid of all gillnets, I still become amused at how these fishing BB's are being used in manipulative ways. Some of the posts after your good fishing day post were for "damage control" to thwart the competition from showing up. The smarter guys will know this. If you know how to catch steelhead there are enough there to catch.

Even if every nate caught by a sports fisherman for the last 20 years were released, we would be in the same situation we're in now. Sportsman are responsible for less than 1% of the decline of our native runs. It's the gillnets in the rivers and the gill nets in the salt water that is the problem. Get the gill nets out and every sportsman could keep their limit of natives (should they choose to) and the size of the run would continue to grow. Implementing full C&R will have no impact at all. A small percentage of released fish still die, that is a fact, a much larger percentage of released natives get caught in gill nets. I think many of the people that do keep natives do so because they think they might as well keep it because if it's released some indian will end up selling it for 15 cents a pound. It's hard to avoid that mentality. I've fished the Hoh several times and have seen gill nets strung completely accross the mouth of some creeks and streams that run into the Hoh. How is a released native supposed to get past that to spawn? Again it goes back to rights. As long as Indians have the right to retain natives, so should everyone else. It should be up to the individual to make the right choice.

[This message has been edited by WA fisher (edited 03-20-2001).]

WA fisher,

If you're keeping natives, you're PART of the problem. It's really as simple as that. You have no control over the tribes. You have complete control over yourself. Even given the fact that our native steelhead runs are in decline, some guys can't seem to let them go. That's why the C&R rules are put into place.

Any steelhead you kill has NO chance of spawning. Every steelhead you release has SOME chance of spawning. Are you saying that the world, and the fish, are better off if you just kill it now so it's sure not to wind up in a net? Think about what you're saying.

Once again, YOU HAVE NO CONTROL OVER THE TRIBES. It's already been to the Supreme Court, there's nowhere else to appeal it. Your fishing seasons will be long gone before the tribes are EVER required to pull their nets. For that reason alone, you should be releasing EVERY native steelhead, to better ensure your ability to fish. Otherwise you're just one contributing factor in the decline of the runs. Why not be a factor in their recovery, rather than a factor in their demise?

Using your logic, I'll draw an analogy:
Private Smith lands on the beach at Normandy. He dodges machinge-gun fire, mortar rounds, land-mines, and a bevy of German troops all gunning for him. Due to Pvt. Smith's strength, speed, and sheer luck he somehow breaks through the lines and reaches the French countryside. As he wanders past a farm-house, the French farmer (whose country has been invaded by the Germans) pokes his rifle out the window and shoots Pvt. Smith dead.

Why?

Because the farmer knows there are many German troops ahead of Private Smith, and he'll be better off dead now.

Now, does that make any sense? Is the farmer better off? Is Pvt. Smith better off?

Maybe this example isn't perfect, because the farmer probably wasn't interested in eating Pvt. Smith, but it's still close. Sure, the farmer only killed one soldier, and the Germans killed thousands, but that doesn't help our unfortunate Private.

It's not that hard to let them go. I just like fishing better than the fish itself. Now, it's time to go after the consumers of these netted native steelhead. Ending the supply hasn't seemed to work, it's time to cut the demand.

Fish on..........

I'm not trying to promote C&K. I'm just saying that it's completely bogus to even imply sport fishing has contributed to the decline of the runs. I also stand by my belief that it's wrong to harass people who do decide to keep a nate on a river where it's legal to do so because that run isn't close to being endangered. I've repeatedly said I've never kept a native but have no qualms with those who do. It's their right. I just want to see blame going in the right direction. It's not sportsmen, it's not habitat, it's gillnets whether they be tribal (in rivers) or commercial (in salt water). You might as well say sport fishing is responsible of for the near total decline of the bottom fish population in Puget Sound. Are you saying that because a ling cod is endangered in some areas, and I catch one in an area where they're not endangered, I should let it go? That just doesn't make sense.

Hey, I thought this post was about fishing the Nooch, not keeping nates???? I musta missed something.

Hey Dan, that was one helluva reply. I give it a double thumbs up. Very creative, but I'd prefer Private Ryan, leads to that whole movie deal. But, it was a great analogy. You actually hit the head on the nail. You never know, maybe the French had a ration on meat so he wanted some fresh off the boat american steaks???? But nonetheless, great post!!!!!!!!!!

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you haven't lived til you've rowed a cataraft. Friends don't let friends run Outcasts.

Ill tell ya whats bogus!

Anybody who says that sport fishing does or has not played a role in the decline of wild salmon and steeelhead is full of it and dosent know his facts.

If you want proof just look at the graph on the WDFW site that shows the 20 year harvest both sport and native american. Or you can look at the catch records before 97 that gives both Sport and Native American harverst for each river system.

We were right up there with the netts. We may not play as big of a role now but we did then.

The WDFW's numbers are far from accurate. According to them, the sportsman caught over 60,000 sockey in Lake Washington last year in the 2 week season. In order for that number to be accurate, there would have had to be twice as many boats fishing as there were and they would all have to catch their limit every single day. This was far, far from the truth. Not only were their numbers screwed for the amount of boats that were fishing, but very few people were actually limiting. Boats with 4 people in them would catch 3 fish. A limit? Not even close. The state tries to be so politically correct that they won't tell the truth. One gillnet will kill more steelhead in one day than 100 sportsman. What the state does is assume everyone is catching and keeping their limit. Anybody who says that sportfishing has played a role in the decline of wild salmon and steelhead is full of it and doesn't know his facts. How can one person who is allowed to keep 2 fish (assuming he even hooks, let alone lands 2 fish) can have as much impact as a gillnet that catches many, many times that amound.

How many more sportfishers are there than gillnets? You just can't think in terms on you alone. Until we stop thinking "me first" the problem will never be solved. And that is truly sad.

There are a lot more sportsmen than gillnets, however, gillnets do kill many times more fish than sportsmen. You have to figure that even on a good day, sportsmen are still more likely to get skunked than catch a steelhead. A single gillnet will kill more steelhead than every sportsmen on a river combined, and that's assuming that every sportsman kills every fish they catch. To give you an example, I was on the Frasier River last fall salmon fishing, the day was slow and no one was catching anything (there were about 30 people on the same bar) some Indians ran over in a boat, dropped one guy off on the bank and drug a sein net right where we were trying to fish. They pulled the net in, and on the first pull, caught 40 fish. We just left at that point, but that single net, caught more fish than our entire group did in 3 days fishing. Go figure, eh?

Every fish to have made it Past the gilnets is your Fishing Future... They are considered escapement, Left alone or caught and released they will Spawn and Contribute to your fishing and the commerical and tribal gilneting for years to come... If we get so caught up in what the next door neighbor is doing and not doing our part for the future then there will be none. We can't totally focus on what the nets are doing, but what we can do to the fish that have made it through. Please release our future