As a trout angler who occasionally fishes for salmon, it bugs me to see complete river closures, ostensibly to protect Chinook salmon. It happens to the Humptulips, then the Skagit this year, and now the Satsop. A lot of us like to chase sea run cutthroat with 5 and 6 weight fly rods that couldn't harm a Chinook if we tried. And we don't try! Rather than enforce fishing regulations, the Washington Department of salmon just prefers complete river closures these days.

But the Chehalis did open for coho fishing yesterday, so a friend and I gave it a go. I've mostly fished in the Harbor in the past decade or so. I'd kinda' forgotten how nice it is to boat and fish in some tamer water. We boated a couple and called it good.

I agree, Salmo. They could easily craft regulations that protect salmon and allow trout fishing. Used to be that "opportunity" was the mantra. Now, they see to have given up and just open or close.

With the Chehalis tribs being very low and no rain forecast for the rest of the month I was wondering if tribs (Nooch, Satsop, etc) will open ov Oct. 1? Anybody heard anything?

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

Other than Doty the basin flows are forecast below average but not record lows which is good. Now the bad the long range forecast has rain off and on through Oct. but not enough to jump flows up. The weather looks to following be following AH's old rule..... no real rain until the first week of Nov. Nov. is going to be wet for sure but then we have this, the large number of Coho moving up early is good as NT nets are in the last week Sept two days then the QIN and NT combine 4 to 5 days netting a week through Oct.

To your question who knows! If the fish come in and move above the Rec boundry lines probally not. If they fill the river and park so you have red fish ass deep maybe. The fish did that in early 80's and again early 90's.