I was in lower chehalis this morning.. saw zero jumpers. the 3 of us had zero fish.

The bay should be ablaze next week!

There are fish moving, both adults and jacks. I encountered several very large jacks (20+ inchers) and a couple smaller adults while looking for sea run cutts on the Lower Satsop the other day. Looked like a pretty good-sized pod was moving up to a shallow tailout, then retreating back to the deeper flat below. Must have been just a little lower than what they wanted to move up further or something. Whatever the case, there are at least some fish around. If the forecast holds, the fishing on the Chehalis should be really good mid-next week. Not enough rain to blow things out, but enough to cool the water down and put a little traveling water in the tribs. I guess we'll see.

I have been watching the forecast on NOAA's site also and as of now its the 18th for any real rain but it appears to be mostly South of us. We are looking at 1/4 to maybe 1/2 an inch. https://www.nwrfc.noaa.gov/weather/10_day.cgi

Hopefully we get the rain but to early to dry to do much even with the rain we have gotten so far. Water temps have got to be dropping and that will help the river for sure. Damn near the whole Coho run coming in way early like last year is certainly out but like the saying says " fish will do what fish will do ". Somebody could make a fortune if they figured it out!!!

Amen to that!

I agree that it's probably not going to go like last season, and I think (hope) you lower river folks are going to have some fun, as long as the fish start moving before the nets go in.

My hope is always for steady movement (as opposed to bulk movement in brief events, which is what we get most of the time), because that tends to make for longer seasons and spread out the success among all groups. Like you said, nobody knows the magic set of circumstances that guarantee good fishing seasons, but my anecdotal take is that if NOAA is right, the OP will be getting light but steady rainfall over the next 10 days, with one event on the 18th that could dump an inch in the mountains. That should at least double flows (which are still quite low, but cooling) in the lower tribs, and past experience suggests that should be plenty to move some fish. Hope so, but yeah....

and fish will do what fish will do................ yeah

Put another way, you can hope in one hand....

Well I finally observed a couple of fish doing the back ripple at slack water. No idea on what fish but one appeared to be wounded by the way it was acting. Incoming tide nothing showing so far.

Had some folks ask me what is up with the river and it is about what I posted before and yes as usual fish are working their way up stream but it is not in any great numbers from what I see. I doubt the rain coming tomorrow will change that.

What will change things is the rain starting the 21st, 22nd, and 23rd, and 24th is supposed to bring 3.41 inches over three days. ( 21st not so much ) So in the world of planning fishing I do believe the tribs are going to brown out for a few days and the Upper Chehalis takes 3 or so days to get to tidewater so you guys might be thinking location as the tribs will clear fast but the Chehalis will trail in both browning out and clearing up. So have a week of this weather and fishing then all hell is breaking loose.

Fished around Aberdeen today. Must have been 100 boats on the water. Didn't observe many nets flying and saw ZERO caught from the bank during 3 hours around the high tide. Heard the fishing was better between Cosi and Monte, so maybe there's food for thought....

Mr. Hamilton,
Is there any chance that Sterling Landing will be open for the Oct.1 opener? Popular take out place for boats.