I was curious if anyone has heard any rumors of when the WDFW will annouce the emergency closures for the March and April C&R seasons on the Snohomish, Stilliguamish and Skagit systems.

2 years ago, the closures were announced in November and if I recollect, last year the closures were announced right around this time...

Could it possibly be that we may have our Skykomish and NF Stilly fisheries in Spring back??

btw-I have heard of good numbers of wild winter steelhead jacks being caught lately on the Skykomish...much more then normal in fact. Could next year in fact be a return to some the better returns we have had in prior to the past few years....

We are going to get screwed again this year. It's amazing to me, but under our present director, artifical lure/fly fishers are allocated only what is left over. We get the "above 101" sections of some rivers, after the bait fishers have all "first water." Read Pete Soverel's article, "Managing Washington's Wild Steelhead by Closure," in the September issue of The Osprey, the FFF Steelhead mag.
Of interest in the same issue is Bob Hooton's B.C. study of C&R mortality. It shows that bait accounts for 9 times the mortality of lures and 65 times the mortality of flies!

In that case I'm a killing sum biatch then. I wouldn't post that kind of stuff about fly and baiters. not a good subject.

If the returns are expected to be bad, I want it closed. The fish will need it and the fishing won't be very good anyway.