Fished the Skagit today dispite the bank to bank condition, and hit several dollies, a jack steelhead or nice resident bow too. Toward the end of the day I was re-fishing a drift on the way out when a two foot hole appeard in the water just in front of my corkie. WHAM! My heart was pounding as I set the hook. I was thinking, one huge dollie or FINALLY a chromer. It didn't fight right though. It didn't fight like a Dollie or a Steelhead. Imagine my surprise when I beached a fisty Silver. Not the brightest fish but it sure wasn't half dead either. Talk about late...

No way, man: had to be an extra-early springercoho. They come in half colored.

Do you fish the Skagit? Not completely uncommon to see downstream swimmers (Silvers) in the second week of January in the upper reaches of the river, but I've never seen one this fresh still in spawn mode. FWIW there was a guide comming down last week that said they boated one too. They're still in there.

TC -
Not uncommon to see/catch late coho in the upper Skagit well into February. Spawning adults can be found in a couple of the Skagit tribs into March and even rarely into April.

While the Skagit seems to have most of these late coho I have seen late fish (mid-February to March) in the Snohomish, Stillaguamish, and Nooksack systems as well. These late fish indicate just part of the diversity found in the wild coho - certainly outside of the hatchery box. While these fish are not a major portion of the wild population that doesn't reduce the importance of them to the population. An interesting side note is that 4 year coho have been found in those systems; some of which are likely offspring of these late spawners. In more than 40 years of fishing the North Sound rivers have caught in river unspawned coho as early as late June and as late as the last day of March.

A common topic on this site is the need to preserve the genetic diversity of wild steelhead. This is an example of the divesity that can exist in all of our wild salmonid stocks. Further support of the need to treat these other species no differently than steelhead. Fisheries management needs to considered the biologicial needs of the species, not the social/emotional values that we anglers may place on our current favorite species.

Tight lines
Smalma

there was an article this week in the seattle PI about the bald eagles on the skagit. it said that they normally feed on chum till early febuary and start to head up to BC but this year there sticking around and being fed by a rather large run of early silvers and to expect them to be there till april. i dont know how they determin the run being early or late, seems if its a large run shouldnt it be on time for itself if its here right now?