{as long as Inslee is governor, your fisheries will continue to decline, like they have, until there is nothing left...}

u got that right!!

Regardless of who is elected governor our anadromous salmonids are toast. Too much money fighting against them.

Another fishin fool and his update.

Figured I’d update you if you’re still fishing the Chehalis or Bay. I fished the lower Wynoochee float yesterday with ZERO fish to show for it. Not a fan of fishing that river since they aren’t hatchery supplemented to a good degree, but we took my buddy’s boat and he loves fishing that river.

Saw two small Chinook or large coho as we floated over them as spooked em, and that was it besides the typical non-biting jumpers at Sterling Landing. Will be floating/dragging the Satsop from Decker to the Highway takeout on Wednesday and will provide another update.

Fished around porter Saturday. Only had 4 hours to fish. Went up and down river a ways, no rollers, no bites.

Might want to be careful floating Satsop. I hear of an impassable logjam below Cook Creek (just above Satsop Riveria area). Sounds like it'll be a problem in high water as well.

Damn, I was considering floating the Satsop in the coming weeks. Has anyone put eyes on this? Might be worth taking the single person pontoon for the time being.

Can’t get passed decker. The log jam mentioned and a couple logs are blocking the chute right above west fork launch. The only floatable part of the river is west fork down.

Even if the Satsop was passable above the old W. Fork launch, it's so low that floating it would be a huge chore and probably not worth the effort.

I spent yesterday doing some across-basin recon. Lower Satsop was quite crowded, so I didn't bother to fish there. I was excited to find the Wynoochee deserted, but it didn't take long, per Rivrguy's report, to figure out why. Not a salmon in sight, save for one dark jack I saw jump. Checked the Wishkah for grins. Looked more like Cloquallum Creek than anything you would call a river. I skipped fishing for the salmon that weren't present and settled for a little (semi-successful) cutthroat wrangling. After that, I decided trout fishing was the best thing going and went to a favorite spot on the upper, trout-only section of the E. Fork Satsop. No cutts (they have been hard to come by this season), but right off the bat, a 6-lb. coho that was a certifiable chromer grabbed my bugger and gave me a wild ride before coming to hand for release. I started seeing jumpers (mostly fire trucks), and I figured that must mean the fish were finally moving upriver. Figuring I might find a harvestable fish down below, I stopped off at the old W. Fork launch on the way home. There were definitely fish piled up in the holes below the launch. Again, mostly dark rollers in the wood, but I did see bright fish flashing in the deep parts of the faster water (probably new fish on the move). No bites. Other fellow fishing said he had put in a full day and also got skunked.

Anyway, it looks like there are some lockjawed fish piled up in parts of the Satsop, but that's pretty much it for the major tribs so far.

Got a question for you guys, has anyone came into contact with a Chum lately? Lacking the QIN reporting it is educated guess time but it looks like something is up.

Weather update and the long range forecast for any significant rain has been backed up to mid November ! Some rain mid October but it is less than half an inch over three days which is not much. It looks like pattern we are in is advancing up the calendar by months.

One last bit Chehalis tidal water temperature still hanging in at 63 and change to 64 and a bit. Flows upper basin are down to some above record lows but it helps to remember that 30 or 40 cfs in flows is just about nothing.

Some perspective from those that’ve seen these rivers for several decades would be great.

Are these conditions approaching historic levels? How did the salmon react in previous times? Just trickle in until at some point their biological clocks couldn’t wait anymore and then just a mad rush through shallow water? Any effect on the returns 3-4 years later?

Scenarios like this are what I wish WDFW had in mind when allowing a 2 fish non-select harvest on Coho this fall. Could really burn escapement if it gets bad enough.

It's not warm water but in (I believe) '79 we had freeze start in November that ended the end of January. The streams had anchor ice it was so cold. We had a hole downstream of the trap that had, by our estimate, 200 coho when the freeze hit. Those same fish were still there in January for the thaw. Once temperatures warmed they boiled up out of the hole, headed upstream, spawned, and died.

At the other end of the spectrum was a chum stream on Hood Canal. Dry fall, no fish in creek. Rain occurred between the two weekly surveys. Pre rain there was nothing in the creek; post rain there were a couple hundred spawned out carcasses. They'll wait as long as they can.

In the early 90s it was drought years. Everything hung up except there was a flow of fish but not huge. Learned two things Chinook bucks will come in slowly but Chinook hens will hang back in tidal water but once the Chum moved in mid Nov the Chinook hens did also.

The Coho did not make the hatchery in any numbers until the late in the 3rd week of November when it rained hard and we had a a brown out. In one night the hatchery return came silver, tainted, bright red all at once. Darn near lost the pond because of low DO and slammed the gate shut.

Salmon will settle in fresh or stay out in the ocean when dry waiting for rain. Until we have enough rain to water up spawning waters the fish hold up someplace. Oh almost forgot they bite at first but week to ten days they stage up and you have a river full of rolling non biting fish with a huge portion of the fish turning red.

I have seen and worked in it but dry years is something most have not seen. Hell this is the first summer with good weather on the coast since the 90s and this rainy summer crap came about. Then the woods many years went on hoot owl and the woods were closed to hunting until fuel moisture came up to allow it usually mid to late Oct.

We are in a normal weather pattern be it one that has not been around for a bit.

Appreciate it guys. Definitely a first for me. Floated/drug a Chehalis Trib yesterday. If anyone would like a report, feel free to PM me.

One thing I figured I’d ask is on the lower end of the float, we had a helicopter take off right near the takeout, and immediately started progressing upriver about 200’ or so above our heads. Looked to be a WFDW game warden (green pants and all) hanging his feet out the side door, observing the river. He and I were definitely making eye contact so it seemed there was some interest on their part on fishing and/or river conditions. Guessing they were maybe looking at water levels, blockages, fishing pressure, etc.

Anyone hearing anything? Would’ve been nice to see that effort on the closed winter fisheries from enforcement, but I can imagine it’s pretty pricey.

On another note: more bright, unspawned, dead Chinook and Coho than I’ve ever seen where I fish. Some were absolutely chrome. Quite a bit of algae as well. Real bummer to see, and guessing a lot of this is water temp related?

After the closure of the Forks area OP rivers….the chehalis and its tribs are probably next, especially if they are out monitoring it like that. They are probably looking for floaters and stuff too. Probably close it around the 10th of so.

Would be best for the fish, unfortunately for us. Low conditions will make it easy for those among the community wishing to snag the Chinook that are already on their redds. We’ve all seen those trash sub-humans.

Time to focus on chanterelles I suppose.

they just closed the entire system and all tribs...

https://wdfw.wa.gov/fishing/regulations/...0RUgsHocdfTLvHM

Are the nets being pulled, too? If the goal is to protect fish, they probably had better shut them down, too.... Ocean and bay fisheries?

According to the social media person for WDFW, they told me on Facebook the tribe will be pulling all nets too. That’s what they always say….yet nets are always in when they “shut down all fishing”. Weird.

As long as everyone else targeting the same fish has to sit on the sidelines, too, I'm fine with it. Probably the right thing to do, but it is damned disappointing, to say the least.

Don't see any rule changes for bay or ocean, so it looks like the big boat crowd can still wail on 'em while the poor sucker bankies wait for rain. I imagine the gillnet effort will all shift to the bay, since it's still open for sporties?

Oh, well. Guess I shouldn't worry about all that; all I need to know has already been communicated. Now... what to do with myself on weekends and the Mondays I took off to go (sob...) fishing?