I almost felt like I was gonna throw up! Last Sunday i went to my favorite hole on the upper Snohomish and found out it is a thing of the past, and nope, it was'nt that the river had changed its course. On the north side of the river, under the 522 bridge around 20 feet up river there was the beginning of a slough where if you cast into the west bank there was a deep slot which has now been destroyed by someone who cut a road to the water and dumped a bunch of bolders into the slot. WOW!!! Someone dropped the ball on this one. Ive pulled at least a thousand pounds of Coho out of this whole in the last few years. ARRRRRG!!! How can this happen?

Is it possible the highway department did it to protect the bridge structure? Was it near the base of the abutment.

It had nothing to do with support of the bridge. I dont get it. Maybe they are putting another bridge in. There was another new road cut to the water of the slough even further up...maybe 50 to 100 yards...Which sorta shoots down the other bridge theory. Maybe we can hang someone for this...lol...seems to me they must need permits to do such a thing.

Welcome to the world of WADOT. I fished there for a while yesterday and saw the heavy blanketing of rip-rap rock as well. The rock was dumped in to stabalize the bank in order to protect the nearby bridge abutement. It looks like all the work occured within the highway R.O.W. , so WADOT can do what they want. I hope that Snohomish Co. officials required off-site mitigation for the impacts to the river buffer. More than likely WADOT claimed the fix was needed to prevent an "emergency" situation of the bridge being compromised during a 100-year flood event.

Sorry about your honey hole. I remember a honey hole of mine on the N.F. Stilly, went there one day and the hole was high and dry, due to the river blowing out a new channel .

BD

I feel your pain. A couple of years ago the A.C.E. designed a plan to remove the old lower dam on Goldsborough Creek neer Shelton. ( While in the long run it's a good thing for the fish ) It's still a painfull thing to look at. The hole where my first steelhead was landed is gone. Our local TU chapter had a hundred year lease on the area from a timber company. Not only the provide a buffer from the clearcuting above, also to have an interpretive trail to show the value of the fish resource. Well it turned out to become a party spot for some of the locals, and now it's lost to everyone forever.

I feel your pain as well. I used to love to park under the bridge and walk into where the Snohomish & Snolqualmie meet. It could be so nice and peacefull. The guy that owned the property was fine with us fishing there but was not happy with the garbage etc. Not sure how much came from us. I do know the kids used to go in there in the summer and party on the little beach east of the bridge. He closed it off, put up signs, fence etc. I stopped by there earlier this year and looked at where I used to go in. With the overgrown blackberries etc he could not of built a better barrier.

Also keep in mind that the long term plan (before 2010, IIRC) is to make 522 a 4-laner which will mean another bridge, right next to (immediately up stream from) the existing structure

Can't remember but can find out. My friend works at PUD, it is not a PUD project but another companies and they are adding I believe a gas line. It is legal work....