Well, put some time in on the CR lately. Chasing that mythical 470,000 springers....

I've had the chance at 1 in 3 trips, a buddy of mine has 4 in his boat in 7 trips and I've seen a few fish taken....

Water temp is 43-44 degrees. If there is going to be 470K, it better get rolling soon or it'll be a no go.......

Keith

Bio Buddy of mine attended one the preseason forecast meetings. He said they had like 17 different models that showed a run from 100,000 to 1,000,000..Since they couldn't agree they just met in the middle.

There were 7 models, which generated numbers from 366,000 - 528,000.

Jack counts were 4X higher than ever previously recorded, thus were seen as an statistical outlier, and they went further, to include optimal conditions for both outmigrating smolt, and juveniles in the ocean.

That's where the 470K came from...

Must of thrown out the other ten and kept the middle seven..


http://www.cbbulletin.com/368669.aspx

Talked to Clancy Holt today. He is excited. From all his contacts he beleives the runs looks like its going to be big. I don't pretend to know anything about it, but have a lot of faith in Clancy's network and instincts.

If half a million hatch fish shoot over that dam EyeDoc's not going to take it well..

Ya, I know, who would?

Tribes..

It's still early IMHO. Seems to me the lower river stocks start to show with the smelt.

The upriver fish don't normally show until the river warms up a bit more. My log book shows springers once the water temperature is more like 46 °F.

That's pretty much what Clancy sida. He's convinced it will be excellent in about two to three weeks.

There *were* a half million springers......
























....until they all died due to sea lice infestations!

44.4 deg. today, no fish, 7 hrs.,. sea lion did ok though. Bill

Or wasted as bycatch in the pollock/whitting trawls along our coast!

For Gods sake, its only the first week of March! There have been a lot of fish caught so far, considering how early it is. Everybody needs to just settle down, all this internet fish chasing is seriously out of control. Do you really want to start calling it a down year on March 5th?

Things were lookin good in late feb but slowed down the last week. I have had 4 fish in 4 trips with the last 2 trips fishless. On tuesday the temp got up to 46.3 in the afternoon. Should explode anyday, gonna hit it sunday. The late feb push of fish were almost all white faced willy fish, I have only seen a couple upriver ones so far. I have faith, for now.

You guys in PS better start screaming about that sealice stuff, worse than LNG terminals..

I'm thinking the peak will actually come in two waves. The first wave will run through Cathlamet from 8-11 April, and the second wave will run through the same area 24-27 April. That's what I'm seeing from the computer models I've run. Coincidentally those models just happen to synch with the vacation time I'm taking.

Doesn't the Columbia close on the 18th of April? I've got my RV spot rented from the 31st of March through the 17th of April. And I missing something?

fp

Yeah, through April 18th below Bonneville. The bubble fisheries will probably still be open after the 18th.
Such as mouth of:
Cowlitz, Kalama, Lewis, etc.

When they're crossing Bonneville in good numbers, the Wind bubble, which is quite liberal, gets very good.

If you have the gumption, you can chase these guys through June.
You will be in skinnier water or way up the big C, however.

This is the question I had.

"And the second wave will run through the same area 24-27 April."

Just seems that goharley is fishing there those dates?????

And, I'm fishing
there on the 18th too but only have to pay
for the RV spot through the 17th.

fp