I remember when we started up at Snow Creek we were in the '76-77 drought. Really didn't break until May and then a flood that took out the racks. From May on for a couple of years, we had at least an inch of rain every month. Kinda different now.....

Ah the "good old days"!!!!!

In some ways, yes. At least we had lots of fishies.

https://www.nwrfc.noaa.gov/weather/10_day.cgi

Well the rain event coming has been down graded considerably. Sure hope we get more than the forecast says now, the hope thing again.

On the bright (dark?) side, the extended forecast is showing more chances of rain the following week. I'm thinking fall is coming a little sooner than last year, but yeah, that could just be blind hope....

Trees around here are already losing leaves. That will help transpiration. I still think the longer-range view is for a drier fall. Anything helps.

Has anyone seen the Q's net schedule?

C&P from WDFW provided information. Nothing on QIN website. This is a C&P so I am pretty sure your going have figure it out a some as formating will like fall apart.

Date Week Days
10/1 - 10/7 40 2
10/8 - 10/14 41 4
10/15 10/21 42 4
10/22 10/28 43 3
10/29 11/4 44 0
11/5 - 11/11 45 5
11/12 11/18 46 5
11/19 11/25 47 5
11/26 48-53 5

Edit: The Nation always starts noon Sunday.

https://www.nwrfc.noaa.gov/weather/10_day.cgi

Weather changing again and they 3/4 inch Thursday. Did I hear hope hope again?


Flows will bounce.

https://www.nwrfc.noaa.gov/rfc/

Just stringing you along........

We get enough rain this early in the season, it's gonna really speed things up quick! Looking like enough in the showers to provide a decent river or stream bump depending on the location.

Fishing has gone downhill since Steve Pool retired.

Well it is safe to say that the rain event was a bust! Just enough to turn things into a steam bath around here for thr next couple of days with temps around 80. Nice weather for the weekend to be sure and should help the fire danger on the coast.

Sure is nice to have some damp ground around here, though.

Sure was a bust.... we're back to mostly hot and dry in the extended forecast. Oh, well... the last rain chances came out of nowhere... could happen again.

Meanwhile, I'm toying with the idea of taking a tuna trip on September 21, and the warmer forecast would be good for that, so maybe I can squeeze some lemonade out this year....

Sounds like a winner here!

Then on the downer side we are off on the Springers again.

The Daily World

This spring the Center for Biological Diversity and Pacific Rivers filed an Endangered Species Act (ESA) listing petition for springrun Chinook salmon in the Chehalis River Basin.

The petition is currently under a 90-day review with the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which is anticipated to respond by Sept. 26, according to a news releaase.

After the review period is completed, if National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration decides the petition warrants further consideration, they will begin to investigate data such as abundance and population trends, and continue to perform an extended status review of springrun Chinook salmon in the basin.

Currently, the Chehalis Basin is the only remaining stronghold in Washington where no salmonid species are listed as threatened or endangered.

An active salmonid ESA listing in the Basin would have impacts across strategy projects, including additional required analysis and feasibility considerations, in-water actions, and more.

This topic will be a priority for ongoing Board discussion and is a major topic for our long-term strategy considerations.




But if Tuna fishing fails you try to catch one of these!


New state record mahi mahi caught off Westport
The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife

The 21 pound, 48-inch-long fish — also known as dolphinfish or dorado — was caught 42 miles off the Washington coast by angler Wade La Fontaine on Aug. 25.

Wade La Fontaine is an avid saltwater angler who has been going on trips off the Washington coast for more than 10 years chasing salmon, lingcod, halibut, and tuna.

Even with all that offshore experience, La Fontaine never expected the fish he landed on Friday, Aug. 25, 2023: the new Washington state record dolphinfish, also known as mahi mahi or dorado.


Angler Wade La Fontaine with his 21 pound dolphinfish caught out of Westport on August 25.
The 21-pounder with a brilliant yellow belly and blueish-green back was caught with Captain Keith Johnson aboard the charter boat Tunacious trolling plastic squid behind a spreader roughly 42 miles off the coast of southwest Washington.

Upon landing at the dock in Westport, the dolphinfish was checked by a Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) Fish Program biologist, then weighed on a certified scale at Ocean Gold Seafoods. La Fontaine’s Washington Record Sport Fish Application was then reviewed by a WDFW Regional Fish Program Manager and other staff, and certified on Aug. 30.

Dolphinfish (Coryphaena hippurus) are sporadically caught by recreational and commercial fishers targeting albacore tuna and other pelagic species off the Washington and Oregon coasts, including a handful recorded last year at the ports of Westport and Ilwaco and at least two this summer.

Most mahi mahi caught off our coast are smaller fish in the 6- to 12-pound range. La Fontaine’s fish — which was 48 inches long and 40 inches to the inside fork of the tail — was more reminiscent of large dolphinfish caught in warmer waters off southern California, Mexico, and Hawaii.

The charter reported the water temperature in the area of ocean where the dolphinfish was caught measured 70 degrees; warm even for these warmer offshore waters though not unprecedented especially during El Nino years.

Washington’s previous state record dolphinfish was 16.27 pounds caught by Albert DaSilva out of Ilwaco in 2013.

“I’m so appreciative to Keith Johnson, Darrell Johnson, Raymond Paraíso, and Aden Kallerson with Far Corners Adventures Sport Fishing,” said La Fontaine. “Without these charters doing it (making the run offshore) day after day, I wouldn’t have had a chance to connect with this fish.”


Wade La Fontaine and Captain Keith Johnson after landing the new state record mahi mahi on a trolling rig.
While he hails from Camano Island, La Fontaine said he fishes for albacore tuna out of Westport up to six times a year, and hopes he earned this very special fish.

“I’m blessed beyond comprehension,” he said. “I’ll be getting another tattoo of a mahi!”

In Washington state, dolphinfish are listed within the “Other Food Fish” category and have a daily limit of 2 per person. Other Food Fish Refers to species that occur in our waters irregularly, usually in coastal areas during the summer months and also includes opah, swordfish, striped marlin, barracuda, white sea bass, bonito, California yellowtail, and pomfret.

Albacore tuna are the primary target for Pacific Northwest offshore anglers, with large schools or “patches” of these “longfin tuna” abundant off the coast of northern California, Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia in the summer and early fall. Albacore are found in the “blue water”, a mass of warmer Sea Surface Temperature water typically found off the West Coast of North America during summer and fall, and off Southern California year-round.

Recreational anglers fish for albacore 40 to 100 miles off the Washington Coast, with commercial fishers regularly venturing even further. Occasionally albacore will come in as close as 30 miles and, on rare occasions, they have been known to come in as close as 15 miles or less.

Many charter boats target albacore out of Westport and Ilwaco on both one-day and multi-day trips, while independent (non-charter) anglers with large, ocean-capable boats also fish tuna out of these ports as well as occasionally La Push, Neah Bay and Sekiu when weather and water conditions allow. Check out our blog post on choosing a fishing charter.

Tuna and mackerel fishing is open year-round off the Washington coast, with weather and ocean conditions as a limiting factor. No minimum size or daily limit except northern bluefin, skipjack, and yellowfin tuna, which have a daily limit of 2 each.

Information on how to submit a possible state record fish is available at: https://wdfw.wa.gov/fishing/basics/records

Westport
Mahi
Dolphinfish
Dorado
State Record

Great eating, to be sure.

I have had inquiries as to what is up as I have not sent much out lately. Well I have been a bit under the weather a bit and let us just say that some aspects of getting old are not that hot but I am fine!
Now down to business and it has been a strange month for the river in all aspects. Back a few weeks a substantial number of Chinook moved upriver chrome bright right out of the ocean straight up the river. I thought this was going to be an early run then that movement stopped. We have jacks and adult salmon coming in but it is spotty from what information I have.

Chehalis water temperatures have been just terrible up to the mid-70s and this morning is 67.4 here at the house and remember my place is in tidewater. So with the cooler evening the water temperatures are dropping but 67.4 cannot be regarded as good by any means. Chehalis Basin flows remain right at record near or at record low flows throughout the basin. As strange as it seems this is normal for returning salmon but these are terrible conditions for the juvenile salmon and trout rearing areas. I read a bit back that on 15 January 2022, an underwater volcano in Tonga – the Hunga Tonga–Hunga Ha’apai – erupted violently, releasing billowing plumes of soot, water vapor and sulfur dioxide high into the atmosphere. Water vapor is a greenhouse gas and so “it is possible that over a multiyear period Hunga Tonga–Hunga Ha’apai will cause a temporary increase in global surface temperatures”, the paper says. In particular the Pacific Ocean which cutting through the BS means we are likely to have this ugly weather pattern for a couple of years more. Great summers for sunseekers not so much for fish!

Back to strange on the river. First we had the Chinook thing followed by schools of fish six inches or so long and the birds went crazy feeding. For several days I had three Osprey crashing the water in front of the house then nothing. A few days down the road schools were back and Cormorants in an absolute eating frenzy! This was followed by Blue Herons working the heck on the gravel bar on the tides getting some sort of little fish and then they were gone. This morning nothing no fish jumping, no birds, no nothing just blah.

So salmon are coming in (some) and water temperatures are dropping but at the present flows are not forecast to increase until sometime in October. So we wait and see but the fish are going to do what fish do and seldom what we want them to do!

One aspect of the warmer freshwaters is that the adult salmon metabolic rate will rise; use more energy to live. That energy/nutrition gets diverted from eggs and sperm. It also will eventually weaken them so redds might be shallower, might not be covered as well, and so on. I think that basic fry production will go down next spring.

I have had some questions as to the relationship between flows and returning salmon which is different in tidewater than flowing streams. The flow thing is complicated yet simple. Flows are about cubic feet per second (CFS) which is 7.48 gallons in a cubic foot per second. So the difference between 100 cfs and 200 cfs for Chehalis Basin flows is not that huge. What is hidden in that number is water temperature and dissolved oxygen (DO) which are rather important. Warm water and low DO stress the heck out of returning salmon especially above tidewater.

Tidewater is not about flows as tidewater is measured in acre feet and an acre foot one foot deep is 326,000 gallons. So in tidewater the flows are important but seldom a driver for salmon behavior and health until a real bump in flows or the fall rains water up spawning streams. In times such as the present it is not unusual to see the same log float up and down the river with the tide day after day. I have always thought of it as a bubble of fresh water moving back and forth. Think of it this way if you put a barrier across the bay and drained the bay how long would it take to fill the bay and tidewater. Looking at tidewater and bay acre feet and summer cfs flows coming into this area many months or even years.

Salmon always do the same thing each fall but differently. They come out of the ocean to be sure and that is the only thing that remains constant. They will hold in the bay, swim right through tidewater, or stop in tidewater, move out of tidewater into tributaries, and in the Chehalis itself move above tidewater but seldom above Porter minus substantial rain. The combinations of these factors are many and coupled with behavior such as last year simply move in mass upstream way early makes predicting what salmon runs are doing is next to impossible before it rains.

The one constant behavior always present is after leaving the ocean and entering the bay the vast majority of salmon will stop and wait for rain someplace out of tidewater, which is known as staging up. The best example I can provide folks is the East Fork Satsop Coho. Many years broodstocking Chinook the hatchery Coho were stacked below and well above Schaffer Park yet Bingham hatchery a few miles away had very few Coho if any to the trap. Yes you have the outlier years such as last year but those years are few and far between. In the hatchery returns in the 80s and 90s we had as many staged Coho red fish return as anything silver looking with the Humptulips Hatchery being almost the opposite.

The one thing that we learned on the East Fork Satsop was Coho stay staged (mostly) until it rains but most importantly spawning areas water up. On the East Fork it takes a descent amount of rain to water up but when it does the first thing that happens is brackish black water comes down stream and it is almost a golden black color. The fish would crowd into areas out of the main current and as soon as the brownish water arrived off they went like it was a race, which in terms of spawning I think it is!

So for the harvest managers freshwater fisheries are always a bit of crap shoot. Often they get it right and sometimes like last year they get it wrong. With the predicted weather pattern being dry and salmon behavior almost completely unpredictable, who knows what the next few weeks have in store for us. My thought is fish when you can as planning ahead is likely not going work out well.