Heading up to my grandfathers place on the upper Kalama for 4 days. Have a lot of projects to do but going to take the mornings and eve's off to do a little fy fishing up there. There probably arent many fish up there yet. Not like there used to be. Just want to get out there for old times sake. Might head down below also and toss a spinner or some bait down in some of my favorite holes in the canyon if I have time If nothing else i know I will have the water at the house to myself and that is always nice. Everyone have a safe and happy 4th. Take it easy. Firedog

Ok Got back today. Didn't get the chance to fish as much as I would have liked. Good sign on the upper river though is the number of fry and smolts around.Walked the river along the property and saw a lot of smolts and fry. Good to see, also saw some old redds on one of the feeder creeeks up above. Is encouraging.Did fly fish a bit at the house and caught mostly smolts and a couple nice fish that I would almost call steelhead jacks. Fished that are for almost 30 years and never caught any resident trout that size. Around 14-16" With fishing pressure being non existent in the past few years it is possible that the trout may be getting bigger that are there. All fish weer turned loose and hooked on barbless flys. Is interesting to see that a few of the smolts are clipped. Just wish they would let the adults back up in that stretch. Miss the days of hooking 10 fish before breakfast on my fly rod with no one else around, right now would settle to see an adult fish in that stretch of river. Oh well maybe again someday if things keep going the way they seem to be going on this great river.

[ 07-04-2001: Message edited by: Firedog ]

Firedog,your wish may well be on it's way.Apparently they are going to start letting the fish into the upper river again in 2002,I heard this from the biologist on the Kalama.But they are undecided as yet whether to allow a fishery for them,he wants to do some research and is afraid that a fishery would hurt his study(which I understand as he has a hard enough time now with the few things he is doing now).But keep your head up and hope for the best

Just wondering, since I havent fished that area for many years. How is the native summer Steelhead run doing? Any natives left in the Kalama? Quit fishing the Kalama a few years after old Pritchard passed on. Just too many boats to contend with.

S&S, that is good news. I kow they are planting fish up high, just from the number of smolts caught that are clipped. Both Steelhead and springers.They are using the old ponds up on the Gobar to raise fish, it is a good way to do it because they are pretty much raised in the wild and have a little better survival insticts I would expect. I will keep my eyes open for the fish when they come back.

Skyrise, the native run is there just not a lot of fish. I talked to the hatcery guys either early this year or late last year and they had a few hundred natives natives go up above the hatchery, I dont remeber the exact number. They also let quite a few springers up also. I did have two pairs of springers spawning in front of my grandfaters place last year so that is a good sign. Looking forward to seeing more fish in the upper river and some of the main tribs up there.When the fish do show up I am going to keep that secret to myself

[ 07-07-2001: Message edited by: Firedog ]


[ 07-07-2001: Message edited by: Firedog ]