OK, this is a post for ideas. As many of you know, I've fished this river for all the fish the river has BUT my favorite is the summer run steelhead.

I go back to the 1st years of the planting returns, 1979. My career choice was teaching, so gave me the perfect timing during the summer months.

Early years was lot's of bait fishing, eggs, shrimp, or prawns. Did the drift boat bit, with bait divers, plugs, or just casting bait. Early 90's started carrying 2 rods.....1 for bait and the other for the "then new" bobber and jigs.

100% of my fishing now.....bobber and jigs.....pretty much have it dialed in.

This year.....June 7 - 13, fishing time 4 a.m. till around 8 a.m., with at least 2 other "early morning fishermen" and as many as 12, there HAVE BEEN NO FISH CAUGHT BY ME OR ANYONE ELSE fishing one of the best areas on the whole river.

June 7....a fish was hooked but got off within 10 seconds.....since then nothing......not a take down on jigs, nothing on tipped jigs, bait, spinners......

Success, even with "guides" and all the many boats that have been fishing the river........NOT GOOD.

I live close enough, that I can drive and take a look off the bridges....sometimes do 3-4 times a day........As of 40 minutes ago, I've not seen a fish.....I cover the "twin bridges, Black Ck., Cross over bridges".....

Season opened about a week later, than when we had a June 1 open....still no fish.!!!!

Any ideas????????????

See what shows up after this rain.......

Don't know the Nooch at all so just speculation... Has the hatchery changed their release sites from many to one? Know that a lot of other rivers are enduring that same thing. Snohomish basin used to have several release sites for summer steelhead. Now there is just one. Seriously impacts fishing in a lot of areas that would traditionally hold fish. Now instead of fishing over a "return" of summers to an area you are fishing on strays.

Good idea supcoop.

On the Willamette, they plant at each boat launch on the upper river. Fishing around those areas is generally good. Other areas (down river a few miles, for example, fishing is poor).

yeah I was talking to you on the opener DrifterWA and Ill second your reports, seems like the best action has been up top, personally seen 3 come from crossover upstream. maybe means a late run or there are some "lost" nets in the Chehalis getting all the fish who knows, but it is surprising there is nothing in your hole being caught

Its slow, but I managed to hook up one time up high. One other "bobber down". Could be worse, could be 0/0 I guess.

You think its bad now, just wait a few years when the WFC comes to your town.

You wont even be able to fish.

Enjoy it while you can.

"Grab the edge of the desk for leverage Coop!"

Looks like we are in that one together now.

my own experience says to give it another week or two. almost stepped on a small school of them, walking down past the slide hole wednesday morning. unfortunately they were pretty spooked after that and i couldn't get anything to bite.

danS has fished them all out!

was told by someone who should know that they planted less than half of what they were suppose to.. that's just hear say so don't quote me..

It's early....................Good luck,

SZ

the days of full quota plants in this [Bleeeeep!] state are history. I don't keep up on plants but if some wants to prove me wrong. share with us any river in the state getting the same number of plants as 10 or 20 years ago.

Plant numbers have been the same since 2009. We have been directed to move some of the plant numbers upstream, but we continue to plant smolts at the traditional sites along the 'nooch.
That directive came down 3 years ago. When I first got to Aberdeen, the fish seemed to staging in the middle stretch of the river. Then 1 season, they stopped that and started staging other places within the system. Could not figure out what they were up to, went and spoke to the former manger about it, to see if we were having some effect on their return timing, staging, etc.? He told me that winter-runs tend to come back to within a few river miles of where they were released. Summer -runs tend to do whatever they want and they aren't interested in your opinion about it. If anyone out there keeps a journal spanning 15+ years, I'd be interested to see when they started seeing good numbers returning. What has anyone heard about other summer-run rivers this year?

ken you got numbers to back that claim? or evidence?

Not sure what you mean by claim or evidence, our plant numbers are on WDFW's website. Elaborate please? The rest of my post is based on personal observation,conversations, and feedback from anglers that have been fishing the 'nooch for 20+ years.
Even Drifter, grouchy old poop that he is.

He means he wants to argue about it even though you're right and he's wrong.

Just numbers, a graph or a pie chart would be sufficient. seems simple enough.

A graph of a horizontal line? Lol

A pie chart.

Look yourself. http://wdfw.wa.gov/fishing/plants/steelhead/

60k summers a year for the last decade.