Kerry -
Hope Brian doesn't mind us hijacking another thread.

I'm sad to report that this fall is the first in more than 40 years that I didn't fish the "cutts".

It has been my experience that sea-run fishing is very much a low water game. That is in my limited experience I have only found decent fishing during periods of low water. This has been especially true on the Skagit with its large flow. There I have noticed following a rise (any time between August and early November) the cutthroat staging/holding in the lower shot up river and it often takes a week or more before decent numbers build back up in the lower river.

After the big rain in late August the river never did drop to levels that I would consider to favorable to fly fishing for the cutts. Prior to the rain I stayed off all the rivers due to elevated stream temperatures. Because of those higher flows I'm not surprised you found tough fishing - that is exactly what I expected when I was looking at the flows.

The impacts from Ocotober 2003 flood likley had minimal impact on this years cutthroat run. The early timing of that flood likely impact the survival of some fo the parr. I had expected that for the coho and sure enough the out migration of wild coho smolts this spring was only about 800,000 or down about 1/3 to 1/2 of expected - we'll see those impacts this fall's coho run (maybe we'll get lucky and have above average marine survival). While it is possible that we some impacts on the small cutthroat they tend to hold in different habitats and my expctation was they did better. If there were impacts we should have seen it in lower than normal numbers of the small (9 to 11 inch) cutts.

The good news is with few fish being caught we may see more larger fish this coming fall if we have conditions favorable to fishing.

Happy Holidays and may the New Year bring you tight lines.
S malma