What ever happen to those dreaded predicted downward wild fish returns??


It's been quite a long time since anyone on this board has talked about those standard predicted dreaded shortfalls of wild fish returning to our streams. So what the heck has happen? For sure, no one ever will say a darn thing when they are "red hot", but why does every wild fish supporter on this board always seem to go silent and doesn't complain, or tell us how, in their opinion, the runs finally turned out until it starts again next year?

Now that most of those "earlier runs" of wild fish are over, and without saying the name of your secret stream, what was your verdict?

Good. . . bad. . . fair. . . or what? Spit it out now or forever hold your tongues!

Cowlitzfisherman

Good, of course the river I was fishing was new and I am not as familiar with it as my home river.

Let's see the Sky, Stilly, and Sno were all closed this year because of the the declining wild fish runs. The only reason the Skagit\Sauk was open for the second year in a row was they dropped escapement to around 6000 fish from I think 8K or 8500. The managers are saying that the earliest that the Sky will open up is 4 more years but they aren't even sure. I believe they also closed the Queets to years in a row early because of low runs.

So not sure exactly how you think this is healthy. Do you?
JJ

It was good,Probley the best wild winter run fishin
I've ever had.Good luck,
STRIKE ZONE

Cow,
Here in Beaverland, it was an excellent winter for natives. Hatchery winter and summer steelhead....now that's a different story so far!

I witnessed some pretty great fishing on the Oly Penn rivers for native fish. Many of the Oregon rivers seemed to be pretty good as well. Even the Cowlitz had some good days, although nowhere near as good as it could have been.

I would say it was a mixed bag. Some Oly pen rivers had excellent periods. The entire Snohomish system was pretty dismal, as was the Sauk.

The Vedder , up north started really slow, but march and April were fair. I would say the predictions were pretty dang good.

Most of the "S" rivers north of seattle were good. Hatchery runs were terrible, besides a couple good outings. Hopefully the summer runs will show strong agian...