And took a look around this morning and South Monte, Friends Landing, Cosy , and Paks all full but not jamed. I watched one fish being landed and lots of trying to get one. Around home couple of jacks jumping but not much else showing. Kinda a traffic jam on the river around and below 101 bridge for sure. You pick your spot to fish but some place few folks other you will have company for sure.

Had good fishing again yesterday standing on the same rock. I definitely seem to have stumbled on a bit of a "hot lure," because the several folks fishing next to me (all using similar stuff) were struggling. Color doesn't matter... until it does. Either side of the high tide has treated me best so far, as usual.

Fish I caught yesterday were dropping scales like ocean fish, so I suspect the rain we got did something in terms of fresh movement.

Different day for me today. Visited my rock again at about an hour before and 2 hours past the high tide, still throwing the "magic lure," and while I saw a few kings rolling at the high slack, I saw no signs of movers and got no bites. The two seals that have been hanging out there were swimming around aimlessly and looking up at me, almost as if to say "where did they go?" Pretty sure I spotted one of our regulars who fishes the same stretch running upriver to look at something, and he must not have liked what he saw, because he turned right around and headed for the takeout without so much as dropping anchor. I think that should have been my sign... if that was who I thought it was, he knows what to look for.

I was due for a good, old-fashioned Chehalis bank fishing skunking, but I always wonder where the fish have gone when a day like today happens this time of year. Maybe they were right there and in lockjaw mode. I looked at the lower Satsop on the way out, and I don't think that's where they went. Still crazy low and deathly silent. Someone knows where they are.....

9/23/2025

Sounds like what I did yesterday..........ran, looked up river, saw nothing, turned around, headed for my take out.....home I went!!!!

I have not had many days, in my 50+ years of Chehalis fishing, of fishing the high incoming tide, all my fishing is in that part of the Chehalis....yea, I do know it but I sure miss out, SOMETIMES, yea I Do!!!!!!

I thought that was you! I should have known it was a bust when I saw you turn around LOL.

Hope you're well and having good fishing more often than not!

9/24/2025into fishing

it'd help many of the Fuller Bridge to Aberdeen to have rain. It's not many days. until Wynoochee, Satsop, and East of Fuller Bridge open. It blows me away to see how low the Satsop is, my home river, Wynoochee, is better off because of the release of water from the dam, looks like the White Bridge launch will not get fixed for who knows how long????? When I remember November-into January fishing for the Late Coho, just out and out BIG FISH, those were the days......

So we're in for some serious rain in the Olympics... 6 inches in the next 10 days? That'll move a few. We may get our first blowout just a few days into the season. If not, we should have good fishing. Tribe should do well when they go in....

https://www.nwrfc.noaa.gov/weather/10_day.cgi?v=20200803v1

More so on the Olympic side but aa 900 cfs jump in the Satsop should work!

One of the downsides of this rather late push of water after all the dry will be the toxins in the first flush. Remember that coho are particularly susceptible to road run off. Plus, at a number of WDF hatcheries the first big rain lowered the pH by a unit or more, which stresses the fish.

Coho hate brackish water but that early rain helped but they really want the beaver pond water down stream below them before moving hard.

Been a few times when I was working traps that chum or coho decided to boogie. Rather amazing, and fun, to net a couple hundred fish out of the trap and send them on their way upstream. One time it was on a freshet/fairly good spate while the other couple times were just time to go.

In a normal year when it rains enough that flows jump the beaver ponds and swamps turn loose brackish water. The East Fork Satsop will turn this golden balack color for a few hours. Coho will run the edges or just about anything to stay out of it. Muddy water doesn't even bother them like the swamp dump.

Yeah, there is that. Need some flow to push the summer crap out.

https://www.nwrfc.noaa.gov/weather/10_day.cgi

NOAA is sticking to the weather forecast for rain in the next few days so it starts Sunday so they say with the Olympic side of the watershed getting the biggest jump in flows. Otherwise fish are starting to stack up in the usual parts of the river with the usual jumping / rolling. Thats not the case in mid tide water around Central Park. No idea why and I must admit it is a bit strange. I know fish are going up stream by what I have been told by others fishing up stream but you sure do not see them here!

We need too keep remembering that what spawns is what survives to spawn. They are not caught in nets or by hooks, they are missed by the pinnipeds. I remember reading somewhere that the European Brown Bears are way smaller and much more secretive that Americans Browns. Maybe all those years of avoiding humans made then so. Same with the salmon. For a salmon, lockjaw is a survival advantage. Not riolling and jumping and calling attention to ones self works too. Sneak upstream.