Did I say clearing fast? Not where I was but managed a small Coho and Jack. Guy next to us got a Chinook so all & all hard fishing but doable with nice weather.

Not exactly a "soft" tide, but incoming all morning and beautiful weather. Unfortunately there was an east wind until about 1, made for a wicked chop on the harbor for the first couple hours. That was brutal; then it settled down for good trolling conditions. Saw over a dozen silvers jump, once just aft of the stern, where my herring was spinning perfectly. Never saw a net fly all day. Finally on the final troll path on the way in, got the one and only takedown. Nice, bright, super-strong, chinook. Managed to keep it away from a nearby seal before sending it back to meet a gillnet tomorrow night or Monday. That was it.

Where are the silvers?

Sg

There's piles of them in the tribs. Piles of fisherman too.

I drove the loop on the Satsop, this morning.......Hiway launch, not as many as Friday, same at the West Fork launch, "S" corners had lot's of cars parked along the road......Decker Ck. had lot's of rigs there.....Cook Ck., I've seen alot more here.

I can tell you.......lot's of jacks......heard they killed about 200 of them at Satsop Springs.....would be nice to increase limit and have them go to a good use.

Net's of death start again Sunday 12:00....10/6 - 10/9, then cowboys get 12 hours on 10/10

Might be slim pickings.........

Saw one of the high-liner QIN gillnet boats in the bay today. He made one set, picked a couple fish, then got the hell outta dodge.

We didn't fare much better.

Like Salmo g said.... "Where are all the coho?"

Really strange nobody's catching coho in the bay.... What fish I did see on a trib yesterday were on the move, in a big way. Only one stopped to play, and he won. On the plus side, I did find a nice place to escape the hordes that descended on the Satsop over the weekend. The number of anglers on the Satsop was about twice what I've usually seen this time of year. They weren't here in September. Probably not a coincidence that it opened for hatchery kings last week....

Heard highly conflicting reports from the Satsop; one said nobody was catching and the other said everyone was catching. Hmmmm....

I fished 3 hours on Friday and 3 hours yesterday at the boat show Satsop.

Got grabs on spinners, jigs and eggs. Solid action.

Loads of people in the beautiful weather. The fishing got slower as the fish got pounded more and more in the dropping water. Fish were on the move both days, as far as I could tell.

Highlight was hooking a big purple backed king in a riffle yesterday. We were going downriver, he was going up. He circled the boat twice then burned the skin off my thumb while my partner tried to get the boat going. I was down to about 10% of my backing on a 5000 sized reel. We chased him on plane with me standing on the bow reeling like crazy, then he broke my leader while trying to weave him out of a log. Fun stuff.

Another highlight was laying on the bow of my boat drinking a Rain-dog in the sunshine yesterday watching my buddy fish a side channel. I was laughing while my buddy crackered off fish after fish because he had broken off the end of his hook and didn't know. He was blaming his wife, his dog, me, and whatever else he could.

Another highlight was Fri afternoon in the sunshine in castingpearls boat, we raked jacks and adult coho for about an hour and a half straight in one small run.

With the very early Sept rain the tide water cleared of Chinook as they mostly Summers headed for the Satsop & upper Chehalis. Everything caught was very bright and not much holding. With the big rain recently everything moved up again and they are catching bright Coho above Rochester. With all being almost a month from spawning they are not going all the way to the spawning creeks ( most anyway ) so the tribs & upper Chehalis should have fish to catch now in far greater numbers than usual.

That is the good news but the next two weeks are peak Coho timing and for a runsize they are predicting something does not compute. Those who know a area real well are getting fish but the average guy not so much. Lots of Jacks but those are next years adults and add to it a huge number of 3 to 5 lb Coho, many below 20 inches, it just does not compute. We used to clear the pond of over a 1000 fish and would come up with two or three of those guys.

For me in the tide water I have seen numbers of Chinook, lots of Jacks both species, modest numbers of Coho and they are SMALLER than normal and many into the strange 3 to 5 lb guys. I have trouble buying that smolt at 18 fish per pound at out migration are six months later coming back at that weight. That is a strange thing.

I can concur with this. We have landed a few fish the last two weeks that we couldn't tell if they were a big jack or just a small adult. I know one that was really small, marked as a hatchery jack and then when it got cleaned had eggs...

Double post but I think the GH portion is relevant.

OK numbers are up on the WDF&W website for Commercials so far Willapa & GH. http://wdfw.wa.gov/fishing/commercial/salmon/landings.html Early in the morning so the calculator might have missed a number but I do not think so here is what I got. Willapa Coho harvest total this time last year 14,583 / this year 5189. Same time last year GH QIN Coho total 5060 & this year 1688. For the QIN numbers they were impacted by the flood and word is on the incoming yesterday they got fish but we will have to wait and see what the total is when they post next week.

Now this is scary as in the Willapa floods did not effect NT Nets catch that is around 35% of last years. Now the QIN is 33% ( give or take a fish ) and if GH follows the Willapa pattern at all the fish are in deep crap with the combined tribal & commercial catch.

So much for Kirt Hughes sworn statement on Willapa submitted to the court that he could do a in season adjustment if he thought a problem developed. I guess the question becomes just what does he call a problem? When the escapement number reaches zero?

You may want to add another 0 on that total you heard about up the Satsop. If you enjoy reading hatchery escapement reports... This week will be an interesting one.

Sorry rivrguy, not trying to hijack thread or get off topic. Just thought I'd comment on all the jacks.

Oh hell BF hi-jack away as it is the purpose of this thread! On fish I have been off the river for three days but in this area water has cleaned up, temp is down, and fish are moving. Now how many as we are in the prime two weeks I am clueless. We will all know the answer when the QIN numbers for this week are posted.

Little Edit: Neighbor stopped by the tribal fisher near our homes and yesterday he had two nets out and got 40 fish. We are in Central Park so the lower tribal fishers do much better but 40 is a very poor number.

QIN must've got a makeup day... 3 drifters by the bluff as I drove by.

When do I get my makeup week in the bay?

Friggin' flaming cork soakers!

I do believe it is the NT Nets today.

yes cowboys in today... and they were doing what looked to be ok

Well if the schedule above is correct, it was supposed to be an off-day. Not sure it was the tribes. Driving into town this morning it looked like most of the fleet was tied up at their fish house. If it was the non-tribal netters, why were they in on a scheduled off-day?

if you look at wdfw schedule it shows that the cowboys were to be in today

If we're looking at Doc's schedule a couple posts above, I see Oct 10, today, as a net free day. November 10 is a non-tribal net day.

Maybe the schedule above was just a draft then??

Today was the great tangle net experiment day. Late in the day I only saw three boats participating. All the rest of the days will be gill net starting Oct 24.

Drove over the bridge around 5:30 this evening. Seen 2 gill net boats below and 3 above.