I'm curious if anyone can help those of us who have to drive an hour or more to fish the Bogachiel/Calawah/Sol Duc.

Are there any general guidelines to using the USGS river flow website to decide whether a drive west is in order.

Last Thursday, the Calawah gauge showed about 1700 cfs. I fished the Bogachiel below the hatchery and took two fish. Then the rains came and the Calawah gauge climbed to almost 19000 cfs. Today, it dropped to about 2000 cfs and tonight it is climbing up again (2200 cfs at 10:30 p.m.). I am hoping to make a trip out again later this week. Is there a maximum flow on the Calawah that would indicate that the three rivers are probably not fishable?

Thanks in advance for any guidance.

i like to check the average mean flow for the day. if the real tome flow is close it is a go. usally in the high tenns for flow on the calwa, better yet if it has been stable for a couple of days so it will also clear up some.

I have a sheet of paper that has a "range of flows" for the rivers that I fish. Both height wise and volume flow.

If I lived in Sequim, and was going to fish the forks area rivers, I'd list the flows BEFORE I left home. If I liked what I saw when I got to the rivers, I'd make comments on that sheet when I got home.

Because most of my fishing is done from a jet boat, what I consider great flow and river height, might just be terrible for a "bankie" or for a driftboater.

Probably not what you wanted to hear but what might be the best way!!!

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

It would be hard to set a magic number in place. 2000 cfs and dropping is probably going to see something fishable ... 2000 cfs and rising may not, especially in relation to the Bogey.

The watersheds often get different hits from he fronts. The gauge on the Bogey is also many miles downstream of the one on the Calawah, the Sol Duc takes far longer to see a rise than the other two.

Over the years of checking gauges, heights, rainfall forecasts, temps, etc. I can usually get it right about 95% of the time the day before telling guys to come out or not. It's more of an instinct vs. simply deciphering data ... over time you'll get a feel for it. Even then, there are times when the gauges say one thing and the water color says another.

Thanks for the ideas. I've been practicing with the Dungeness info as it is close to home. It seems to drop into shape pretty quickly and even with double the average flow (today for example) it was clearing up. Tomorrow I get to try it.

For those who fish the Dungeness, 200 coho were taken out of the adult holding pond at the hatchery on Tuesday so there are still some fish moving. Nothing really bright, but some of the males were potential smokers.

Had 2 hen steelhead about 7 lbs plus. One was ready to spawn and the other was close. Unfortunately, no bucks in the pond either yesterday or today. Hope something shows up in the next few days or we'll lose a bunch of eggs/potential returnees for the future.

have you been hooking any steelhead in the dungeness bushybear?

Not yet, but I keep trying. Went out today - had one coho on - briefly. Have heard about some fish being taken. One near the hatchery and another near the schoolhouse.

WDFW only plants 10000 smolts per year. Trying to get that increased if we can. Last year had 23 fish back to the Dungeness Hatchery - got our egg take from those fish. Sure hope we get some more this year.

23 returnees for 10,000 planted.... less than 1/4 percent back to the hatchery.

Wonder how many fish are harvested out of that plant?

Not very many are harvested for hatchery fish the most i ever got in one year was 7 pretty sad, Theres 2 other guys that are really good on the dungy and I think they get maybe 10 a piece..They dont plant that many. You can go down by the mouth and watch the kingfishers pick mouth fulls of smolt There are a decent amount of native steelhead, but they dont start coming in until the river is closed in feb.

Until the mid-1990s WDFW was putting around 30K smolts in the Dungeness. Then they dropped to 10K. Now we're trying to build that back up by using "locally adapted" Dungeness-Bogachiel-Chambers stock. The 23 last year was the best return ever to the Dungeness Hatchery. I'm hoping that we'll get enough again this year to meet the egg take goal.

Some things are in the works for the Straits steelhead. WDFW and HSRG want to get away from importing fish from out of the basin and building the stocks with locally adapted fish. It is my understanding that the Straits rivers will see a decrease in early run (hatchery) stocking while the new plans are being developed. More information will be coming and I'll try to pass it along.

In the meantime, I'll keep fishing the Dungeness and making trips to other rivers in the area. So many places to go and right now, not enough time......