Just talked to a buddy who was talking region 6. They are aiming for Wednesday for an opener on AT LEAST the satsop (but likely the Wynoochee too). I’m hoping so. Will be plenty of water, god knows enough fish moved the last couple days.

NOAA has adjusted the forecast a bit and when this rain event is over ( around 10/1 ) the basin will still be below average flows.

Maybe 11/1.

Also, this whole shifting of rain events to later in the year and other climate changes that lead to drought and warmer summers may lead us to seeing radical shifts in our salmonid species. We should be losing, or at least significantly reducing, species that ned water in the summer but also enhancing the species that use the streams just for spawning and incubation. So, with good management, we should see more chum, maybe pinks (they like cold water), and Fall Chinook. Springers, coho and steelhead will have a harder time.

The Satsop will be at 700CFM's tomorrow then 1200CFM's by Friday night. I just don't get it?

They are shooting for tomorrow. But again, FLOWS DO NOT MATTER unless they count enough chinook. No chinook, no fishing.

No communications yet, so it likely won't be tomorrow. We know they like Saturdays for transition days, so if they DO see the kings they want to see, my guess is Saturday, which beats the living crap out of never! Fingers crossed....

I noticed lately a lot of announcements have come after 3pm. Trying to hang onto some hope I guess…

Guess not. Got word. Going to be Friday-Monday. More moving the goal post. Won’t give actual numbers. They act like they do not have answer to the public. All I was looking for was the CFS, how many chinook or how many inches of rain…REFUSED to give an answer. The sheer amount of superiority complex at work here by the department is mind boggling. They had the audacity to claim fish aren’t moving. So…you didn’t put anyone in the field then? Or they just suck at their job? Are eye exams a thing? I guess I’m not qualified to see fish moving up in the thousands. Those must have been logs going up river…I guess I have to go get a masters to see fish in a river. I’m not worthy of their opulent splendor, surely the WDFW is all knowing and Omnipotent. All now down and worship.

All that money on education just to be dumbasses who can’t even count fish. I guess that’s what you can expect from a department that works on 30 year old “science”. They’re a little slow. The collective IQ at WDFW is 65 and I’m rounding up.

The only goal posts that are moving are the ones you’ve installed.

Dude, I’m sorry you feel like I’m attacking your friend(s) that work at WDFW. A lot of people work at crappy work places for inept management. Maybe they should choose another profession if they don’t want to be apart of the problem.

Mike scharpf has given a different reason why the rivers aren’t open every email. First, snagging, then need to see fish (in general). Says fish are moving but now they are concerned about chinook. Chinook start moving…now says they need more flow and around and around we go.

WDFW sucks at fisheries management. Sorry you can’t see it. They also hate sportsman. All their buddies commercial fishing stayed on the water. They fished yesterday.

WDFW poor management is more responsible for the fisheries going in the shitter more than sportsman. I can’t think of one decision they have made (especially in grays harbor) that has benefitted the fish or the sportsman over the last 10 years. Reducing fish in the rivers have led to river closures…2+2 still equals 4 for me, WDFW wants you to think it’s 5. 5 being “sportsman are killing all the fish, bad sporties!” I haven’t reached a point in my life where I can sink my self esteem down low enough to give them any credit.

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
Courage to change the things I can,
and Wisdom to know the difference.

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

The forecast is moving around a bit, well a lot maybe. This last few days have been a bit of a bust but it is five days out that the bump of any real consequence is to show. One plus inches with Olympics getting between one and two inches.

To use the link just click and the flows show when you place your cursor on a circle (stream). For projected rainfall look to the right side of your screen and click on 240 hours and the monitored sites show inches and cursor on that site breaks it down by days. The
10 day forecast https://www.nwrfc.noaa.gov/weather/10_day.cgi is defined as to the river flows so these two sites are the best to track weather / river flows.

“WDFW management is more responsible for the fisheries going in the shitter “. More than sport fishing, more than the tribes, more than seals, more than just about anything.

Including habitat restoration, follow on restoration habitat monitoring, and management...

While I certainly am no fan or the current WDFW management of anadromous fish, just what can they actually control?

Habitat? That's county and city rules for allowance of development.
Hydro? That's the feds (FERC)
Marine Mammals? That's the feds, too.
Predatory birds? Da Feds again through the Migratory Bird Treaty
Fisheries? Withe the Tribe's concurrence they can control the non-indian fisheries in WA. Tribal, BC, and AK gets back to the feds.

WDFW had very tiny hammers in this game and this is before Tribal donations to politicians get factored in.

I found this a bit interesting. As you can see, we really need to be panicking this year, as the fish obviously are not moving.


Under the escapement reports.

BINGHAM CR HATCHERY Satsop River- H - 1,108 533 - - - - - -2 1,639 10/19/22

BINGHAM CR HATCHERY Satsop River- H - 750 20 - - 10/19/21

BINGHAM CR HATCHERY Satsop River- H 950 - - 950 - - - -- - - 10/12/20

BINGHAM CR HATCHERY Satsop River- H 450 - - 450 - - - -- - - 10/21/19

BINGHAM CR HATCHERY Satsop River- H 1,000 500 - 1,000 500 - - -- - - 10/26/18

The NT Commercial numbers for WK 44 are up and Coho appear close to model prediction but Chum are not. Chinook numbers are hard to use as they do not show encounters only kept marked Chinook. The expected mortality of released adult Chinook is in the model BUT not in the harvest posting.

Actual Oct. 24-2 WK 44 Chinook 1 Coho 1357 Chum 3914

Modeled Oct. 24-2 WK 44 Chinook 1 Coho 1389 Chum 2523

Looks like chums are overperforming, if I read that right?

If so, that's good, but absent evidence of significant Chinook movement, we're still shut down upstream, right?

The NT gillnetters should be required to report Chinook encounters (not just that they harvested what was modeled), as that information is critical to everyone's fisheries (including their own!).

To be clear, my position is that if there truly aren't enough kings on the gravel, none of us should be fishing. Otherwise, we should be out taking advantage of good coho and chum returns.

Best latest guess on when those OP streams might open, including the GH ones? Trying to figure out when I need to start coughing on calls with colleagues....like to plant that seed a bit in advance before taking a sick day or two.

Chum were not before week 44 in the catch but it appears they made up big time in week 44. Chum look to be OK. Coho numbers in the mix look right on for that week. No idea on Chinook.

I bet they open it this weekend. Don’t worry…plenty of coho will be around…on 15,000 made it Bingham creek. Still 20,000+ left.

Sums up WDFW in a nutshell. To many fish, fishing will be excellent…close er down boys!