My very best memories of fishing come off this river. I remember one time that I made three cast and caught one chrome, one stripped and one spawned fish. It was incredable fishing! It was never if you would catch a fish it was always how many and how big. I think what caused the problem was way to many sportsman and Indian fishing. I don't think the Indian's are any more to blame than the sportsman. You could really point a finger at WDFW. When I first started fishing it no one was around, I was a lot of times the only guy on the river and fishing was great with a one fish limit. Stupidly, I complained to WDFW and maybe had something to do with upping the limit to two fish. Than more people started fishing it and pretty soon WDFW was doing news releases about the fabulous wild Steelhead runs and that it was open for two fish a day till the end of April. It soon turned into a Cowlitz River but I don't think the native run could support the pressure. At that point I was complaining to WDFW that they should lower the limit and possible make it more of a catch and release river. I still remember what the Fisheries Department said to me. They said that the river had a very healthy fish run and that they weren't going to let anything happen to it. I think it was only about three years later that the runs really started to go south and than soon after they started reducing the season. There is one very odd thing about the Steelhead run in the Nisqually and that is for some unknown reason the portion of hen's to buck's is like ten to one. I remember seldom catching buck's and we always thought that was great cause it keep us in the bait. I now know much better that a native fish is much better to have in the river than on my dinner table,
I do hope that maybe with the high ratio of hen's to buck's that the Nisqually is making a fast come back. One thing I've learn about the Fisheries Department is that they don't have much of a clue as to what really comes back into a river. I hope someday I will be able to go back to that river and enjoy finding some of those old drifts I use to fish.