Does anyone want to fish the Sky or Cowlitz tomorrow in my Sled? Sorry for the late notice, but my seat just cancelled. Please PM or email me Tonight.

I just made plans to float the green or id be all over it. If you do fish the cowlitz id love a report. Im thinking about fishing it sat. Love to see offers like that on the board, thanks.

shoemaker

I did fish the Cowlitz.

We talked to several people who talked to several people. Nobody that we heard about touched a fish. We fished at Blue Creek for about 1 1/2 hours first thing this AM after running up from Massey Bar then tried various things back to Massey Bar. We saw several guides going up and down the river a lot, so I'm guessing they didn't do to well either. I hope this helps.

Jimh- how was the visibility?


skeets

Not very good about 2 feet maybe.

The visibility on the Cow is pretty low, seems to be worse today than yesterday. Hate to say it, but I think you'd be better off at home getting stuff done around the house.

so it is anybodys guess when the cowlitz will actually clear???

Bustinbig

It all depends on what your definition of "clear" is!

Here's the evil!

It will take at least 2-3 weeks more for the Cowlitz to clear if Tacoma keeps generating power at around 7500 cfs (my best guess). Now when Tacoma increases generation, say up to 10,000 and over (max is about 13,000 cfs) they begin to draw silt from the bottom of the dam. It's being caused by 30 years of silt being built up and deposited in front of the dam and is not likely to change anytime soon.

The really bad news; it appears to be getting worse every year now, and its quite possible that it may be becoming a common condition that we may see all winter long in the future when we experience high or full generation conditions.

I wish that I am wrong, but so far it's not turning out to be that way. Maybe Salmo or someone else who has reliable knowledge of how the operation effects this condition can paint a brighter more pretty picture for the future. It's a crime that WDOE failed to address this issue before Tacoma was given their 401 Permit (that's what happens when you fail to ask for public commit). Since Tacoma was not required to monitor the "turbidity" that they pass through there project, there was no way to support any claim at the PCHB hearing to prove that Tacoma was causing these conditions to worsen by how they were operating there projects.

In my opinion, I think water conditions will get worse long before they get any better when it comes to "how Tacoma" will be operating there Cowlitz Projects in the near future. All one has to do is look at the flow charts of the past, and compare them to how Tacoma is running there Cowlitz Projects now. The flow charts show how Tacoma has released flows for over the past 30 years of operation. Take a good look at the Mayfield flow gauge and you can see what I mean!
http://waterdata.usgs.gov/wa/nwis/uv/?station=14238000

It's a pretty bleak picture for the future! But then I could be wrong…I hope

Cowlitzfisherman