Using this year as an example only, no the one fish limit does not get the reduction in harvest required thus we had the two week shut down. In normal years the Sept 15 to Oct. 1 shut down window affects the fisheries from tide water down and upstream and tribs not so much. Choose the last two weeks of Oct. and the tribs and inland fisheries take the biggest hit.

In the Chehalis Basin fish movement is not a right up the river thing but rather fish entering the system from Sept on and gradually working their way upstream until Nov. spawning time. In a normal year the inland fisheries see little opportunity until after Oct. 15. Tide water is the opposite as mid to late Oct. & Nov. rains pretty much end quality fishing.

My thoughts are simple, any harvest restrictions should be shared by fishers from the lower reaches to the upper reaches. Using the Sept. window in most years penalizes the lower reach fishers as would a later window penalize the trib and up river fishers. We need a better way to do things and that is why a conversation on this subject is helpful.

As to the ocean fisheries WDFW has always prioritized marine over terminal fisheries and the Coho taken in WA waters by non treaty fishers count against our half in terminal fisheries. It is a hit but not totally unreasonable, now Chinook that is another thing all together. AK & BC were modeled to take 13,646 Grays Harbor Chinook ( H & W combined ) with a few hundred taken in WA marine fisheries. This left a terminal run size of 13,333. That is why we will never have a keep Chinook fishery in Grays Harbor.

Update time and the QIN harvest numbers are up on WDFW's website. So it looks like the huge movements of fish early had an effect. QIN Coho harvest is down, Chinook picked up WK 42 to put them up on Chinook and Chum are a no show so far.

2020 QIN Actual:
WK 41 Oct. 4 Chinook 774 Chum 97 Coho 2340
WK 42 Oct. 11 Chinook 694 Chum 18 Coho 1060

2020 Qin modeled at:
WK 41 Oct. 4 Chinook 1054 Chum 394 Coho 3220
WK 42 Oct. 11 Chinook 375 Chum 1079 Coho 1817

Hard to say what the Coho numbers will end up being but it should be above forecast. Chinook also above forecast in fact % wise I think Chinook will out perform Coho. Interesting how Coho and Chinook were way early and Chum seem to be late. Go figure.

C.f.

Hard to disagree with much of that. Thanks.

I should clarify that I favor reducing the impacts of northern intercept fisheries over reductions in local ocean opportunity. If a majority of WA fish must be caught in the ocean, let's catch more of them locally. If our WA commercial fishers didn't fish off Alaska, there would be a lot more (and bigger) fish for them to catch off WA, too.

At the end of the day, I get that the reality is that inland sport fishing sits lowest on the totem pole. Heck, we're even lower down the list of priorities than conservation, and that's damn near the bottom.

Update time for NT commercial landing and the last week of the treaty fishery are not up yet.

Oct 21 NT Commercial
Modeled Harvest Chinook 22 Coho 451 Chum 815

Actual Harvest Chinook 1 Coho 220 Chum 978

The effects of the early returns of Chinook and Coho are still present and the Chum have showed. Be interesting to see what the tribal fisheries show.

Since the massive movement of Coho and Chinook in Sept some of us have more or less been playing a guessing game as to just how large was this movement? In the Chehalis we have two Coho timings. Sept / Oct Coho that come in and stage up and the Nov Coho which only come when the river completely blows out. So the early portion of the run my bet ended up that about 75% of the Sept & Oct Coho came in in that huge movement in mid Sept. Slim pickens for Coho in tidewater until the river blows.

Chinook numbers appear to be above what what was forecast. The encounters in Sept and first week of Oct were way past what I am used to seeing with the run forecast we have for Chinook.

So guys inland early run timing a blessing sucks down low in the lower reaches. I think in the end both Coho and Chinook numbers will exceed preseason forecast but we will have to wait for the final redd counts to know for sure.

A friend of mine called and asked how did I ( and others ) know we had such substantial movement of Coho and Chinook in Sept. Well it goes like this, DW and others fish jacks and they were having a field day on some of the best jack fishing in years. So we text back and forth on what we are seeing and great for jacks few adults. By the way the jacks were down right fat!

Then out of nowhere something happened that I had never seen before. From just below Preachers to about three miles upstream the entire bloody river was full of fish. Not just a few but I could stand in my dining room on the phone and count off as high as 20 fish jumping in a minute. It was surreal and to make it even stranger guys upstream were limiting on jacks but few adults hooked. This went on for five or six days but to be honest I think I missed the start of the build up. Why did the fish stop where they did, no idea. In all my years of working with fish and fishing in the Chehalis I have never seen the number of fish that built up. Then they were gone just like that!

We had a second movement with the rain during the two week shutdown and it was also large but not fishing your left with just observation but it was way more than a few. The Chinook, just way more hooked than normal. In fact after the first movement of Coho when we got to start fishing Oct. first there were more Chinook than Coho somedays.

I am reminded of Harry's rule number one " the fish will screw you " and they certainly did that down low this year. Our loss was inlands dream come true as that fishing was as good as down low was bad. To get scales not set Coho above Oakville in mid Oct. is way past strange but strange describes this year.

Well here is another observation ..... NO guides were working the Chehalis pump house area. The "fish" have not been staging in the area I choose to fish. Not many spinner or twitching fishermen in this same area and its been that way for the past 6-7 years.

The staging area has changed, why is anyone's guess.....I can go though a whole tide and not see a fish roll but still catch moving fish.

Been retired since 1997, widower since 2011 so I fish LOTS !!!!!!! For many years my fishing was spinners and plugs around "wood". Twitching, once I got started, was deadly because the fish were staging, Chehalis and lower Satsop was a "twitching paradise" and still VERY effective, just not where I fish.

Oh, if you like to fish Chum.....there are moving.....NOW!!!!!!!

A whole butt load of chum went through the lower Chehalis yesterday..

Update on the tribal and NT fisheries. The numbers show that the QIN fishers did not do as expected. Then timing is everything and the NT's did about as expected on Coho, Chinook at 7 was over twice forecast and they blew the doors off with Chum. The links to look at thing is below if anyone wants to take a look. I think Kim got the numbers up and that was really fast.

https://wdfw.wa.gov/fishing/tribal/landings#chehalis
https://wdfw.wa.gov/fishing/commercial/gillnet#grays-harbor
QIN
WK 43 Actual Chinook 190 Chum 1309 Coho 709
Modeled Chinook 310 Chum 2711 Coho 1796

NT Commercial
WK 44 Actual Chinook 3 Chum 6092 Coho 794
Modeled Chinook 7 Chum 1750 Coho 536

These are the final QIN numbers for the fall fisheries. Several of us always try to guess the run performance through the season so here is my shot at it. We had the largest movement of Coho and Chinook in mid September I have ever seen in the Chehalis. The effect carried through the seasons and yet the tribal numbers for Coho and Chinook came in close to modeled. Chum were a no show for QIN fishers as they showed a little late but the NT nets massively over performed in harvest with 6092 which is a increase of 348% of modeled harvest.

So my guess is Chinook and Coho will outperform the preseason forecast due to so many fish going up early and the Chinook increase percentage of the run over the preseason forecast will be greater than Coho percentage the run increase. Chum will be over forecast but the combined commercial of QIN & NT was modeled at 7881 and ended up 7676 is close to what was modeled. With the several large movements of Chum we have seen my thoughts are the NT nets came in at the front of the Chum run and harvest was up but the run was not near peak so there were a lot of Chum moving. In fact I think the Chum may outperform percentage above forecast than Coho or Chinook. Use the links in my previous post to take a peek yourself.

That's all folks.


Wk 43 ( Oct. 18 / 24 ) Actual Chinook 51 Coho 709 Chum 1309
Modeled Chinook 31 Coho 1796 Chum 2711

Total Season Actual Chinook 1658 Coho 4109 Chum 1588
Modeled Chinook 1793 Coho 4184 Chum 7444

Not refuting the massive front-end movement of coho in mid-Sept... BUT... there's no signs of steam on the back side. My take on the coho run? Early and small (below forecast)... a fish manager's worst nightmare.

Well the Chehalis has a dirty little secret, we make escapement on the November portion of the run that does not show until the river blows big time. I have seen the early part of the run hang up in a dry year until the 3rd week of November when it finally rained and then everybody came at once. You could be right to be sure, I could be wrong also but we will se soon enough.

I think the thing is living on the river I can cheat! I see what is going on and that build up around the Sept 12th through the 20th was huge and nobody fished other than jacks. Coupled with the continued early rain Coho adults went way up river. We really have two Coho runs, Sept & Oct portion that stage up to wait to spawn and the Nov portion that moves right into the spawning grounds. If the back end is not there your right. If the backend is there then I will be right.

Wow the thread has passed four million hits! When Doc started this thread seven years ago the issues that drove the conversation were all over the place but since then the Grays Harbor Management Policy has ended much of that discord. This thread has evolved to a place for fishers to get information on the Chehalis Basin and Grays Harbor fisheries.

From my spot in the bleachers I continued to be impressed by range of views and knowledge of folks posting. No name calling or truckloads of BS just well thought out responses and opinions. That does not happen all that often in the world we live in today!

So good job folks! Heartfelt thanks to Bob for making PP the forum for all of us to look to for discussions of a wide range of thought on issues that surround our fisheries resource in Grays Harbor.

you do a good job keeping use up to date on what's going on with all the happenings on the Chehalis .. and for what you do I Thank you...

The late return of chum gives me hope that the B-run coho are late as well.

The recent uptick near Morrison Park makes me optimistic.

there isn't much going on at Morrison park ,,, theres only been one or two fishing there for the last week or so,,

No idea on movement at the moment but the Nov part of the run is pure rain driven. That said starting the 11th a four day total of 4 1/2 inches on the Olympic side for tribs is forecast with the upper Chehalis about and inch less. Must admit that the NOAA river forecast projections are not matching weather site yet. Once the river blows we will know.

Being a old guy we used to target in on what was known as the T day fish. In todays terms that is the old native run timing as the early part of the run time was greatly expanded by smolt and fry plants from Bingham hatchery stock. After it was built eggtakes were on the front of the run ( known as run compression ) to try to create hatchery production for commercials with somewhat of a separate run timing.

River update....the Chehalis is mud! The first link below will get you the NOAA River Forecast page to take a peek. So the Olympic side tribs are dropping and will clear fast for a few days of fishable water. Chehalis is still going up and I imagine so is the mud and upper water takes four days to reach tide water. The next event will hit the upper Chehalis far more than the lower tribs and you see the effect on the River Forecast and the weather on the second NOAA link for the 10 forecast. Bottom line is the clear water will be moving around the basin as the rivers go up and down, I think timing will be everything.

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

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

To finish off the update the Coho returns as of Nov 5 to Bingham and the Springs.

The combined numbers for Coho ( W & H ) for the same week in 2019 was 5261 adults and 746 jacks. 2020 is 6770 adults and 2760 for jacks. These are week in year numbers not the final numbers. That is one huge jack number!!!

Chinook broodstocking numbers are down some but the early rains make it a real bear to get at those guys when the fish are in motor mode!

Couple of folks asked if the numbers indicate an larger than forecast run, not necessarily. Keep in mind QIN and NT Commercial Coho harvest numbers were below modeled numbers due to the early movement in September. Had the two commercial seasons performed as expected or exceeded expectations then the answer would be yes. That did not happen so one could put forth that the run was short, larger, or as forecasted. Then the next part of the guessing game escapement and is the run is short, larger, or as forecasted? Once the redd counts are done we will know but that is a bit down the road.

Water is about get ugly fast! https://www.nwrfc.noaa.gov/rfc/

It looks like it will continue for six days or so and then drop. Nasty weather moving through to be sure! https://www.nwrfc.noaa.gov/weather/10_day.cgi