With the Willapa closure ( it will be both Rec & Commercial ) the question is what about the Chehalis? Well the ocean harvest was not what was forecast, terminal tribal and NT Commercial the same. SB has it at 30% of forecasted catch.

Then the fact that it rained early resulting in no staging in the tidal areas as the fished moved right up 20 miles before stopping. No sea lice but scales not set at all which means it was around two days from the ocean to central Park which left all tidal fisheries hurting. Great fishing inland if you adjusted the way you fished to match up with the different fish behavior. In fact the two hatcheries on the Satsop have nearly 4 times the number of Coho on hand at the same week reported than in 2018. Also Chinook Broodstocking is 400% above 2018 but Chum not so. So one could assume that at the same place in time that the wild component is the same percentage but lot of Chum in the rivers but just stacking up with flows. With the river flows bottomed out again the fish in tidal are moving mostly on the incoming tide many with sea lice.

Redd counts on Coho at this time are a dream as the spawning streams are not watered up. The risk here is that if the NOAA weather forecast holds true and it does not rain until around the 24th of November that all three salmon species will have a substantial spawning in portions of the streams that they normally do not use. Add to the mix is when the rains come they are forecasted to be 3 weeks in duration will bring a flood event and gravel movement. This is normal but if the fish spawn down low because of flows the redds will take a hit to be sure.

For every bad indicator one can find the opposite with a good indicator as outlined above. The Chehalis Basin is unlike any other in the state, is totally rain driven, and harvest models show weeks of harvest but not the November brown out when nobody fishes and a huge portion of the runs come through. Last time they shut down the Rec fisheries off of harvest data the river made escapement ( Chinook no with old escapement goal but yes with the present goal ) on the brown out.

I do not envy Region 6 on this one. For myself the conflicting numbers and observations leave me clueless. Just plain no way no how to say with certainty just how the runs are performing. That is going to be Region 6's problem, they do not know. What to do you do when circumstances do not match up with historical data. It is a no win for staff no matter what they do!