I have had inquiries as to what is up as I have not sent much out lately. Well I have been a bit under the weather a bit and let us just say that some aspects of getting old are not that hot but I am fine!
Now down to business and it has been a strange month for the river in all aspects. Back a few weeks a substantial number of Chinook moved upriver chrome bright right out of the ocean straight up the river. I thought this was going to be an early run then that movement stopped. We have jacks and adult salmon coming in but it is spotty from what information I have.

Chehalis water temperatures have been just terrible up to the mid-70s and this morning is 67.4 here at the house and remember my place is in tidewater. So with the cooler evening the water temperatures are dropping but 67.4 cannot be regarded as good by any means. Chehalis Basin flows remain right at record near or at record low flows throughout the basin. As strange as it seems this is normal for returning salmon but these are terrible conditions for the juvenile salmon and trout rearing areas. I read a bit back that on 15 January 2022, an underwater volcano in Tonga – the Hunga Tonga–Hunga Ha’apai – erupted violently, releasing billowing plumes of soot, water vapor and sulfur dioxide high into the atmosphere. Water vapor is a greenhouse gas and so “it is possible that over a multiyear period Hunga Tonga–Hunga Ha’apai will cause a temporary increase in global surface temperatures”, the paper says. In particular the Pacific Ocean which cutting through the BS means we are likely to have this ugly weather pattern for a couple of years more. Great summers for sunseekers not so much for fish!

Back to strange on the river. First we had the Chinook thing followed by schools of fish six inches or so long and the birds went crazy feeding. For several days I had three Osprey crashing the water in front of the house then nothing. A few days down the road schools were back and Cormorants in an absolute eating frenzy! This was followed by Blue Herons working the heck on the gravel bar on the tides getting some sort of little fish and then they were gone. This morning nothing no fish jumping, no birds, no nothing just blah.

So salmon are coming in (some) and water temperatures are dropping but at the present flows are not forecast to increase until sometime in October. So we wait and see but the fish are going to do what fish do and seldom what we want them to do!