Duck In The Fog

You are right. Female jacks are not real common in most places, nor are they here! When I was guiding and fishing everyday on the Cowlitz, I saw my share or small female jacks on the Cowlitz. This especially true when you get back over 15,000 or more jacks like we see on the Cowlitz during our large coho returns (i.e. 50,000 adults). Not to many others rivers in our state support large run of coho such as the Cowlitz does. On years like that, it not uncommon on the Cowlitz to see several "jennys" Several years ago, a large numbers of "jennys" were being caught in Riffe lake. The Biologists were never sure if this land locked coho successfully spawned or not. Most of them were caught going through the area, which is now known as Cowlitz Falls Dam and the 108 Bridge. They believed that these "Jennys" were headed up into the Cispus and upper Cowlitz in an attempt to spawn. No one that I know of has ever observed these jacks actually spawning on redds. So that's a bit of history about jacks and Jennys on the Cowlitz.

Cowlitzfisherman,

Is the taste of the bait worth the sting of the hook????