I have never seen so many rude assclowns floating over, running over, and drifting thru and fishing your water for you as I have seen on the Satsop...and I've fished a lot of rivers with a lot of assclowns floating around on them.

Fish on...

Todd

I live on the Satsop but don't fish it because of this

I was just having this same conversation with a Buddy. I grew up fishing Puget sound rivers, the cowlitz, and in the big bad skok......and I have never witnessed such rude people as I do on the Satsop and wynoochee.
90% of the problem I see is the locals. If they don't recognize you they are complete assholes to everyone. It took 3 winter seasons living out here before I finally seen a change of attitude towards me and acceptance as a "local" of sorts.

And The out of town crowd has no respect for the river itself and fishing ethics that's I've seen. So use to combat fishing Puget sound rivers they are accustom to giving no room to their fellow anglers.

Fishing the Satsop sucks. Way too many people and too many sleds. I know its unpopular to say, but sleds shouldn't be in water as skinny as the upper river. Last time I floated it I had a sled literally run into my anchored boat and then look at me like I shouldn't be in the way. You all can have it.

That's why the past few years I have been picking and choosing when and where with a little more thought into it.Fishing out of state this year down south has paid off in all parts of the game.....pretty dam enjoyable down that way this season.Having the option to move around has paid off.Good luck,

SZ

Last time I floated I had a sled pass me at practically full throttle while I was plugging tight to steep bank and his waves slammed me right into the bank. Thankfully there wasn't any sharp branches sticking out I would have been screwed!!

He seen the whole event play out and had the nerve to side drift right passed me a few minutes later and ask how fishing was.

I would have rocked that bastard, always carry a few in the boat for clowns like that.

I've lived in Elma for about 12 years now, and I've seen a lot of changes on the local rivers in that time. I can't say I had the same experience with the locals that bankbum noted when I first came; folks seemed pretty nice to me. I've noticed, like he did, that the Puget Sound closures brought the biggest changes, not only in terms of the crowding and the ethics observed, but also in the demeanor of the other folks fishing. Seems burning $40 on gas and $20 on a shuttle to go boat racing from hole to hole, only to find two boats in every one, makes folks crabby. And that's on a weekday.... I don't blame the Puget Sounders for crowding the rivers, but it definitely ain't what it used to be.

I still love the Satsop, and having a pontoon boat gives me a few options for finding less crowded water (if not biting fish) but some days, you just have to grin and bear it, and be glad you're not working instead. It really is a shame that so many folks' best option these days is to chase whatever recruits (from runs that are marginal to begin with) that manage to sneak past the gillnets on rivers 50-100 miles from home. Hardly seems like meaningful opportunity for the cost of a license plus a Discover Pass. At least I don't have to drive 2 hours to join in the carnage. And now they're closing the hatchery on the Green.... What a punch in the gut.

The quality of the steelhead fishing has been dismal for me this winter, and I hear the same from a lot of acquaintances. At this rate, it can't be much longer til' the Satsop and Wynoochee are shut down, too. We better smoke 'em while we got 'em.

I love the Satsop, but only because it is close and comfortable (maybe less so since I sunk there). There are lots of times where I think "I wouldn't drive from Olympia to do this."

The river is flattening out, degrading its banks, and has lost most of the character it used to have. Sleds don't help.

I have plenty of crowd mitigation techniques, I can do fine with that, but this time of the year I am thinking a lot more about squeezing into my wetsuit and surfing, or swinging a golf club (in regular clothes not a wetsuit).

LOL. I was at Oaksridge (our local G.C.) on Saturday (not playing golf), and a wetsuit would have been appropriate attire that day. Course looked like something out of a video game. Island greens everywhere.

The world is full of thoughtless assholes. Usually that type of motor head has a little dick and gets his kicks pushing the throttle down. That river should not have sleds on it period. I quit fishing it because of the d-bags racing up and down the river with their boner boats. I had a 20+ pound silver on fly fishing the Satsop. It had me into my backing and a stupid dick head comes flying down river which may have been barley twice as wide as his gasoline orgasm and he ran right over my line. There were probably 5 or 6 guys yelling at him to stop but he kept going. He new full well that I had a fish on. If you need gasoline to get your nut off go do it in a car and hopefully the road will head straight off a cliff!

Rocket I've switched to the clubs at least when the sun has been out, I have no regrets.

Trust me I wanted nothing more than to put a 45 round into his boat...but that's just stupid on my part.
I just smiled and said I hooked 9 fish as he floated by.

Moving out here I did fully expect some sort of bad vibes being from Seattle. Especially with the Puget sound closures and everybody migrating out here to fish.....
The guys who have given the attitude are the 20 something year olds who think they are hot [Bleeeeep!] and out to prove their worth a damn in the fishing community...
The same group that exploits these rivers to make their names known.

And to be honest. By the time steelhead fishing starts getting good out here on Grays harbor rivers (for the most part). The Puget sound hatchery runs are pretty much over with.... even if opened till end of February... the runs are still over mostly by mid January. So all these butt hurt locals over the Puget sound crowd fishing down here are wasting their breath.

I have been fishing it since the mid 80's, live in Port Orchard, so in just jump over the top through Matlock. The Sat and Nooch get my attention most of the time, but the last 8 years the sleds are coming further up, and for some with complete disregard to safety. The problem is the Cowltz. it needs to become a factory, to regain thier attention

On the flip side, fishing was good today, one cromer short of boat limit, and no people, none. Vis about two foot, color decent, flow abit fast, making it a faster float then normal..... And it was a beautiful day.... And heard the Grouse strumming"...... Awsome day

word

If you fished the Satsop in the 70's and 80's, what it is now almost makes you feel like a close friend died. It doesn't fish anything like it used to and it doesn't look anything like it used to.

It really went in the crapper after Fishing and Hinting Lies did a big article on it complete with maps and color pictures and some goat telling everyone about all the 20lb wild steelhead. From that point on the cat got out of the bag.

I still fish it, but more often than not I come home disappointed.

I'm going to take an unpopular stance, owning both a sled and drift boat and having been [Bleeeeep!] over by both enough times to justify wearing Depends now.

Whether or not sleds should be on the river doesn't matter, because they're allowed. With that out of the way, do you want a boat to barely pass you throwing out a 3' wake, scouring the gravel more and just generally being 'in your world' for longer

OR

IF SAFE TO DO SO pass you at a much faster clip making a smaller wake, jet aimed away from the gravel more but maybe slightly louder?

On another note, do you want a sled to..

A) Run directly over the run/hole but farther away from your boat
B) Run closer to your boat to stay away from the fish
C) Come off plane and idle through taking 5 minutes to move past if the waters moving at a good pace.

Now once everyone agrees on these, we'll make it a standard code.
Sound good?

I fished the Satsop from 1968 to 1972 mostly. On a busy Saturday I once saw two drift boats take out on Wharton Bar, downstream of the highway, no sleds. After moving back to the south sound area in 1992 I thought I'd run down and visit the Satsop on a Friday and see if the silvers were in. I drove the river from Fuller bridge up the East Fork to Shafer State Park. In that short drive I counted more angler vehicles than I had seen over the entire 4 years that I first fished the river. Yeah, I'd say things have changed a bit.

Sg

Problem is........Puget sound rivers have gone to [Bleeeeep!], Tacoma area rivers have gone to [Bleeeeep!]......more people have driftboats, toons, sleds, etc., people want fish...I've posted for years.....lot's of water for drift boats....upper Quinault, West fork of the Humptulips, Queets, Upper Hoh.....

No easy answer.....State wants money....license sales, trailer sales, motor sales, etc.

Solve the fish problem in Tacoma, Seattle, Everett, area....many of the problems "go away", for "my local rivers".........

The reason those rivers are failing is over crowding and over fishing. Throw in the jet sleds and it shrinks the river down even more. For those of us that grew up in the old school it's hard to stomach. In those days if someone had a sled they would slow down to a crawl when passing other fisherman. Even bank fisherman. There was river etiquette and amazingly there weren't the amount of fisherman or sleds we see today. Now when it's needed more than ever it rarely exists. There are however still some people that do the right thing.

Sometimes I wonder if some fisherman are out there for the right reasons. My dad (he died at 88) and his crew of sport fishermen were way ahead of the game. Their rules were things like "If you aren't going to eat the fish you catch, let it go. Don't kill it to pass it on to someone else to eat". "If a guy is working a hole start your fishing above him not below him." "Enjoy the total experience meaning the wild life, the beautiful scenery, the opportunity to see things that most people will never see and so on".

These days I see people literally racing from a parking spot to the river so they can stand side by side 5 feet apart from the next knucklehead. The same applies for boat fisherman. In the last 10 years we (my fishing partners) sleep in a little longer and let the invasion fight their way down the river. When we put in it's usually smooth sailing with relatively few others to compete with and yes we do catch fish and plenty of them. We have not kept a steelhead of any kind (native or hatchery) for 20 years. I was taught it's the total package when steelhead fishing and not just a brutal onslaught of freaked out dudes who can't stand the thought of the guy/boat ahead of them catching a fish with the mentality that there won't be any left. Steelhead fishing is a total experience. To some that may sound corny but I don't give a f*@k.

Catch and release should be the norm and not the exception. Now someone is going to say that hatchery fish should be taken. There is one big problem with that theory. If you want to know what that problem is take a look at the stats from the hatcheries this year. It's a nightmare. I don't think one hatchery got their expected returns.

In many of the rivers I fished when I was a kid...mid-70's and into the mid-80's...there were a LOT more fisherman out there than there are now...and everyone was WAY more polite and used far better etiquette than "fishermen" do on crowded rivers now.

I think there were a few differences...first, and most important, there were a lot more fish around.

People didn't feel the need to act like total douchebags to fight for a fish...everyone could catch a couple.

Now the rivers are full of douchebags running all up and down the river to be "first" and "best" at everything...which works fine amongst the douchebags, and annoys the rest of us.

Back then the guides were the ones to look to see who was doing it "right", and they had no problem setting people straight who were acting like douchebags...now a good portion of the douchebags are amongst the guides, and they spend all day racing each other all around the river and the rest of us get caught up in their crossfire.

Besides annoying the rest of us, I know the rest of the guides who aren't douchebags are even more annoyed by it, as they get lumped in with them since they all have the same stickers.

Fish on...

Todd