New to the board but, I think I'll get controversial right off. The satsop is getting as bad as the Wynoochie. Sleds all over the East fork. I'm f****** sick of it. Praying for a drought.

Every year it is more and bigger boats on the rivers that hold fish.

High Rod:

Queets and Salmon rivers are your answer. I can run some pretty skinny water going up, then just pick the big motor up and row down. Don't think its my 14' jet boat that pisses you off but then maybe you are like others and all jet boats are bad.

"Worse day sports fishing, still better than the best day working"

Hey Drifter,"pretty MACHO".

You know,
Its not that I hate sleds. Couple of my regular fishing partners have them (don't tell anyone-but Ive even fished from them a few times). Just sick of being on a small overly crowded river and having sleds zip up the river above me and then 10 minutes later zip back down, and then 10 minutes later zip back up. Or the guy who will run his sled up the river until he sees me drifitn down and then stays one hole ahead of me all the way down the river. At the same time I see guys who will run up the river and actually fish. WOn't see them for a couple hours. I guess I got spoiled last year during the low water very few to no sleds were braving it up there. It was great.

High Rod
I fished the sop and most of the guys on that river are pretty curtios but there are some who are complete and utter A$$holes and the few give the many a bad rap. Dont group everyone who fishes in a sled on the sop into one group because you may just end up being on of those people who are the few one day.
Dances Out

Most of the guys on the satsop are quite curtious to me. Except the guy that we saw about 1/2 way done then he would run down fish the hole then when we got down there they would run down to the next one and so on all the way down to the take out. Wierd guy.

I fish the Satsop regulary from my driftboat but never from my sled. I can always tell which sleds call this river home and which sleds only come down when the Skykomish is slow (no offence Rob). I have had many encounters with sleds this winter on the Satsop and with a few exceptions most have been acceptable. I am a firm believer that sleds have no place above the forks and hear rumors that the powers to be feel the same. It has indeed been a pleasure all these years sharing the east fork with the sleds. I will truley miss that sickening feeling I get when I hear a sled coming upriver. I will also miss the gut wrenching stench of a rich running two stroke kicker as you boondog around me for the third time and having to brace myself as you carelessly scream by a couple of rod lengths away and knock me off the anchor. I will cherish it for about six more weeks. Enjoy it now. I hear that changes are in store for next year. I do however what to publically thank the 18' SuperVee that almost swamped me on January 30, and the crackers in the 16' Hewscraft that kept corking me a couple of days ago. Mabey I will see you on the big river this spring. I will be equally armed with my jet boat and mabey then we can play. The Satsop is at 2300 and dropping. I know where I will be tomorrow, and I know where the sleds will not. I hope to see all of you this weekend and don't forget...bring plenty of beer.

Whoa, Paranoid!

That was your 69th post

drink up

Yep, and none of them 10 words or less!

Ahem Paranoid.

I got a better Idea than banning sleds anywhere, lets just ban people that live farther away than 25 miles. Make em stay home and fish.

Fishhead5

I read in the paper that the WDFW has put off the decision to ban or not ban the use of Sled on the Nooch and Satsop until GH county has a chance to do it's own study. I personally have nothing against sleds, it's the few a holes out there that ruin it for every sledder.

I grew up on the Satsop and personally will not run my sled on any part of it, it is more out of respect of the river than anything else. Anyway at the risk of sounding old I remember hearing the first sled in the 60's while we were floating down and having no clue what that noise was...we were in awe as the boat went by us near where the Riviera is now.

I am sure that some of you will be attending the meetings when they happen on the Satsop and I've been thinkin. It is politically very hard to ban anything, even when it seems perfectly obvious that it should be done...what if Grays Harbor was asked to put a motor size restriction in effect say nothing over 35 horses. The argument could be made that with this size of motor comes a smaller more maneuverable boat that throws off less of a wake which removes a whole bunch of dangerous situations and with less wake there is minimal erosion done to the bank. Just a thought.

Jim

It is not so much the boat as it is the boat operator. I own and use a small sled with a 40hp/28hp at the pump outboard. I use it to go
places that I could not fish from the bank or do not have time to find someone to float with, in my drift boat. I ALWAYS give the bankie and the driftboat the right of way. I don't blast through holes. I get pissed off like the rest of you when I am working my drift boat in to a hole and some a-hole races into it to fish. I can not see any reason for large sleds to be on the upper rivers. We floated Schafers down to White bridge on the Nooch last week. As I arrive at prime water about 2 miles up Carter ck I see a sled.
Yea, I am angry,But it is operator ignorance more than the sled itself. If they want to ban large sleds in the upper areas that OK, if they wanted to band all sleds in the upper area that is ok too.
The point is this, you don't ban cars on the highways because people speed or drive in a reckless manner. There are always going to be a-holes, in sleds, in driftboats or on the bank.

One other point, I don't know how many times a sled has gone through a hole I have been fishing and with in a minute I hook a fish.

Local, couldn't have said it better!!.

As for the ban, the state supreme court ruled back in 74 that they couldn't ban the boats on either river. As far as I know, the state out weighs counties.

Fishhead5

As pimpinshrimp and I found out on Sat. just because sleds run up and down the river dosen't mean you wont catch fish. We floated the main on the Nooksack and caught 4 fish. You just have to fish more of the areas that the fish get pushed such as little slots along the tail outs etc..