The tide water is pure mud and so far mostly chunks and garbage but tide is incoming. When it turns it is going get ugly with trees and chunks as I can see them slowly moving down stream. Before incoming mud was just ugly and it is about to get worse.

With the start of February coming in a couple of days, there will be lots of steelhead entering the Grays Harbor streams after this high water. WDFW?

forget about fishing this year.. maybe next winter

Slammer, Maybe? You are more optimistic than most. The Harbor rivers have been closed to winter steelies for three years.

I just found out that John Campbell passed away. For those who did not know John he was instrumental in bringing about the Grays Harbor Policy. He tore into the old GH harvest model finding errors everywhere and was able to articulate just how it was done. A by the book person rules were black and white no gray areas no maybes which by definition put him at odds with WDFW. I doubt that the drive to get the GHP would have had as much success if not for his efforts. So we lost another of the good guys and you will be missed John.

Rest in peace, Softbite... RIP.

His last contribution here... an example of his meticulous precision in Grays Harbor fisheries.

Ouch. We lost a good one there. Rest in peace, John.

In honor of John, I will post a very Campbell-esque 2023 review for Grays Harbor chinook 2023.

"In 2023, The Quinault Indian Nation conducted a fall gillnet fishery harvesting a total of 348 fall Chinook in two separately scheduled areas: the first in the lower Chehalis River and adjacent areas of Grays Harbor, Areas 2D, 2A, and 2A-1, and the second in the lower Humptulips River and adjacent Area 2C of Grays Harbor. The combined Grays Harbor Chinook catch of 348 was lower than the expected catch of 3,306 (10.5 percent of the expected catch).

In 2023, the non-Indian gillnet fishery harvested a total of 9 fall Chinook with an estimate of 7 non-harvest mortalities in two separately scheduled areas: The Humptulips 2C and the Chehalis River 2A and 2D areas. Although non-Indian gillnet fisheries were scheduled in Humptulips commercial Area 2C to fish a 36-hour fishery during week 43 and a 12-hour fishery in week 44, no participation occurred in 2023. It is estimated that 7 unmarked Chinook mortalities occurred during this fishery based on data collected during on-board monitoring, catch accounting, and when applying 31 percent mortality rate with tangle nets and 56 percent mortality rate using 6-inch maximum mesh gill nets of encountered unmarked Chinook."

Moreover my own personal stats showed only 7 kings caught in 13 days of fishing. On a decent year, it's not unusual to catch that many in ONE tide.

Bottom line, it was an EXTREMELY poor year for Grays Harbor chinook, and I suspect it was reflected in the spawner surveys that produce the escapement and forecast numbers going into NOF.

Very Campbell-esque, and also a major downer.

Thinking about the traffic jams on the Chehalis during Salmon season I thought this relevant.


Pulling the plug: Steelhead fishing from a sinking boat

Pat Neal

The Daily World

It was another tough week in the news. Steelhead fishing on the Olympic Peninsula has gotten so crowded you’ll want to bring your own rock to stand on if you hope to make a cast.

The state closed almost every other river in the state to even catch-and-release fishing, while the rivers of the Peninsula were left open.

This crowded the last remaining hardcore steelhead anglers from all over the United States and beyond into smaller and smaller areas where they could be studied and monitored with a helicopter, drones, trail cams, teams of fish cops patrolling the water with teams of fish checkers interrogating anglers up and down the river.

Add to this a series of the most complicated fishing regulations ever invented. Where the Hoh, a river just over 50 miles long, is divided into eight sections, each with its own seasons and gear restrictions that allow you to fish out of a floating device, called a boat on certain days of the week, but not others.

It’s all part of a study that will allow the state to eventually shut down fishing altogether.

My solution to these bizarre rules was to take the plug out of my boat. It would not be a floating device. It would be a sinking device.

While no one in their right mind would get in a sinking boat to go on a winter steelhead fishing trip, if I only took people fishing who were in their right minds, I would seldom be employed.

The idea that people who fish for steelhead are insane is not a new one.

How else could you explain someone spending thousands of dollars traveling thousands of miles to slowly freeze to death trying to catch a fish that, on any given day, may or may not actually exist?

The only people crazier are the deranged cabal of self-serving career bureaucrats who have managed the steelhead into endangered species status with a Byzantine system of inane regulations that subject the angling public to legal jeopardy every time they try to go fishing.

Meanwhile, scientists have long studied the effects of overcrowding on mice and rats in the laboratory. The results give us a chilling perspective on human behavior.

Back in the 1960s, a researcher named John Calhoun created a rat utopia and a mouse paradise with abundant food where the rodents were free to overpopulate. Which quickly led to overcrowding, disputes over availablefood and seemingly sinister antisocial behavior, which Calhoun termed, “behavioral sinks.”

Over time, the surviving rodents displayed a lack of interest in sex and raising their young. While Calhoun’s research is still being debated, one can’t help but wonder if humans would behave in the same way given the same conditions.

Similarly, the Olympic Peninsula was once described as a fishing paradise and a steelhead utopia.

As more and more anglers were confined into a smaller area by the scientists, the overcrowding led to disputes over fish and other antisocial behaviors.

This led to the row versus wade dispute. Wading anglers, who were stomping steelhead eggs into the gravel, wanted to ban boat anglers to keep them from dragging their anchors through the same gravel.

A striking parallel to Calhoun’s experiment was observed in the demographics of the surviving anglers on our rivers, where very few females and almost no juveniles were observed fishing for steelhead.

This could indicate that the surviving steelhead anglers, like the surviving rats, have lost interest in sex and raising their young.

Whether this represents a behavioral sink or an evolutionary trend is unsure. More research is needed.

Pat Neal is a Hoh River fishing and rafting guide and “wilderness gossip columnist” whose column appears here each Thursday. He can be reached at 360-683-9867 or by email via patnealproductions@gmail.com

Sad commentary.

If all the current closures continue, sounds as if a lottery to play may be in order for the peninsula? I for one, am not interested in bumper boats or rubbing elbows. Sad state of affairs for sure.

It's not that bad. I've been up twice this year, and it felt the same as it ever did to me as far as crowds were concerned. I was actually very happy with the level of respect people were showing each other, both in boats and out, and while nobody was lighting it up, most of the folks we were fishing around managed to find some action. Kind of par for the course, and certainly enjoyable with the right attitude.

https://wdfw.wa.gov/fishing/management/north-falcon/public-meetings

The first Grays Harbor & Willapa NOF is tonight the 28th at 6 PM. They are not having a public meeting but only this zoom thing. The link will allow you to register. It appears that I missed the notice. This is only the preseason forecast and 2023 escapements.

For those wondering in 2023 the Chehalis made Coho and Chum escapement but Chinook escapement is 9,753 and we only had 7,822 spawners. Humptulips Coho were the usual 50% of Coho spawners, Chinook 500 or so to the plus side. Grays Harbor Chum came in at 89,870 with the escapement goal of 21,000.

I'm surprised that Hump kings made escapement. Not surprised at the chum overflow, that was impressive to see. And thanks for the Pat Neal writeup, some good stuff in there,
fb

The Ecological Escapmnt goal for GH chum should be in the millions. But, the "surplus escapement this year" will make for some happy coho and steelhead juveniles with the portent for more, especially coho, when they return as adults.

Got some questions on the why ZOOM vs public meetings and I have an idea but you would need to ask staff. If you have not noticed since the current Director came on board interaction with the public is not a high priority or even desirable. It was a well-managed dog & pony show though. Few hard questions except for an enviro who challenged the agency thought on Willapa Chinook returns and they dodged that one particularly Mr. Lossee’s response. We had the usual meeting recruits doing the rah rah WDFW but that is normal for WDFW. So JJ I think you’re right they are in the basement AND LIKE IT, are not coming out, and have zero desire for a lot of the new staff to go one to one with anyone let alone folks who have a memory of WDFW facts and actions.

You may remember, too, RG, that in the past R6 really didn't like to have minutes taken from meetings with the public. Still don't like to be pinned down with what they say.