and for all the weather forecast.

May some rain but not much but 3 to 5 degrees cooler than average.

June NO rain 3 to 5 degrees above average!

July forecast is only to the 15th for temperatures but is little above or a little below average temperatures.

Chehalis and tribs flows will soon below average and when looking at the forecast we are going to get near or at late summer flows way early.

Forecasting has more drought this summer. Fish gonna need lungs and legs soon.

Maybe if the weather modifications were stopped we would have normal rainfall at the right time... Or we could cut more trees down since a tree can drink 500 gallons a day...

Oh the doom of it all, moaning over drought forecasts while it rains.

No mow the lawns this morning...

Happy Easter

The drought conditions that all will be blasted with will loud for sure. Then you have to remember the Chehalis Basin and tribs are rain driven so low summer flows are normal. The difference in CFS from average to record low is just not that substantial. Other than adult returns timing being altered sometimes it is the rearing areas that take the hit. While the CFS overall may not be that great the over summering and rearing areas do take a hit. Best I can do to explain is beaver ponds which are coho reaing habitat. In a real dry summer the pond levels drop even with constant repair by the furry guys. I have seen them drop in flows and depths but hanging in. The old timers could remember a year that some ponds went dry in the Satsop sub basin and I imagine it was the same other places. For us in the basin it is when it rains in the fall as ground water drops. You get into late November like the early 90s before it rains it is ugly for everything fish.

https://www.nwrfc.noaa.gov/rfc/

Well the Chehalis is still above record lows but barely. Extended forecast has some days of rain but nothing that would do much for the river flows. After such a dreary spring nice to have sunny days but it frosted up off the river last night so don't get in a rush to go crazy with plant starts.

I received the 2025 harvest model and was lazy about getting it out so those that would like PM me.

The Chinook forecast is 11,216 with 885 harvestable and the Coho forecast is 107,826 with 77,820. Chum are the have the best numbers this year at 151,913 for 130,913.

The recreational season is similar to last year but that is not the case for the QIN and NT commercial season. The tribe will start for 2 days the week of 10/4 and fish mostly 3 days a week until the end of November. The weeks of 10/11 and 10/25 will be in 4 days for a total of 28 days in Oct. and Nov. The NT ‘s will fish 7 days from Oct 19 to week of Nov 2nd. When combined week 43, 44 and 46 nets will be in 6 days for two weeks and 5 one.

So what do the numbers mean well not good. The 50% share for QIN (and NT Rec & Comm) is 443 each. The QIN are modeled to take 1665 when the dust settles Chehalis Chinook escapement will be 8,612 which is 1141 under escapement. This number changes as both WDFW & the QIN count any Chinook spawning in the gravel in the wild escapement but get worse not better. Coho are modeled at about 2000 above escapement after everyone is done fishing. Chum are NA in the model no idea why but for all of Grays Harbor it is 72,065 as Chum are not modeled by stream.

So looking at modeled combined commercial fisheries from the second week of Oct for three peak weeks it is a full-blown netting only four days with no nets.

Trying not to be disrespectful if anyone knows any of the Commissioners kindly thank them for their amazing new Grays Harbor Policy. To be blunt I do not think they could find their way out of a one-door bathroom with an exit sign! Way back a lady I worked for said you can be smart as hell and dumb as a stump. With the Commission I am being unkind to the stump is my thought.

This is WDFW & QIN management off a cliff without a parachute!!!!!

Little edit: The bright spot is AK & BC will only take a combined 26.6 of the Grays Harbor Chinook whicjh is 6620.

Perhaps WDFW and Qin read the writing on the wall. With climate change, increasing population, a screw the environment attitude certainly with the Feds, and so on they see that there really isn't a viable long-term future for salmon in the PNW. Need to move to walleyes and stripers.

Semi-seriously, I wonder if they haven't essentially thrown in the towel long term and are just slowly warming the water for the crab to cook in.

They have been playing with fire for several years. For what ever the reason a huge portion of the Chiinook and Coho runs have came in early and got up river before the commercial fisheries. If you remember couple years back the NTs pulled in Chum season because Coho were up and Chum prices bottomed out. Had the fish came in with the historical timing the escapement would have given the word ugly a bad name. All this while the key tribal rep is repeatedly in the news paper editorials braying the virtue of conservation and habitat restoration. Gotta give the guy credit for pure gall !!!!!!!

Oh and WDFW is silent which makes them a willing partner.

people are pretty dumb,, they refuse to think for themselves or make their own decisions...

Soon enough this will all be over and none of this garbage will continue...

I guarantee one thing,, all the treaties and all the law that goes with them is going to end up in the trash as with the ESA and environmental regulation... The tribes are going to have to assimilate in order to keep their US citizenship... They can keep their culture and history but they don't get to act like they have duel citizenship with full subsidization,, those days are pretty much over just not realized...

The tribes days of being partners in the criminal MAFIA,, trafficking of illicit goods without scrutiny,, laundering money for the Democrat Party,, Paying Bribes,, those days are about done...

This system we are under is already destroyed,, it just takes a little time for it to finish dying...

It took me a while but that thing you hear after every stock broker's advert about "Past performance is not a guarantee of future performance" holds really true for fisheries. Our models are all based on the past. Simply put, as climate warms and flows change we model based on the cooler water with more flow.

Somehow, we have to somehow model the present and account for those changes. There are ways, but they involve updates which are now a no-no, to incorporate tides, flows, temperatures and such. They will likely be sadistically less precise but probably more accurate. And more conservative.

I believe we can do a better job of managing but it will require more staff and lots more huevos on all sides to make hard decisions.

I wonder if they will keep the recs off the water to protect any by-catch on chinook, letting the coho go by without any fishery as not even one chinook is left for impacts.

Of course, the tribes will fish the entire time.

If you don't think this is possible, consider what happened for steelhead on the salmon. The recs were kept off, while the tribe fished above unrestricted.