How has the Cowlitz/Blue Creek area doing on producing steelie's

There are no fish in the Cow. Don't waste your time and gas.

See you there.

:D

Fished there yesterday without a hit. Seemed kinda' slow for the number of boats out; saw two steelhead caught and two kings roll in a big pool. But was a gorgeous day!

BTW, has anyone ever seen such a huge load of filamentous algae in the river? Huge globs of the stuff drifting along. At times, I had to clean my line every cast. I wonder if WDFW cleaned all the hatchery rearing ponds at once, greatly elevating the nutrient load and causing so much algae. If not, I wonder what the cause might be.

Sincerely,

Salmo g.

filamentous algae huh? so that's what that stuff is. I was thinking it had something to do with the Cotton Wood trees, since it's so fiberous.

All I know it's bad this year, really bad...

Fished it last weekend and the only fish I saw hooked at blue creek were w/8-10' leaders and #4 hooks. I'll bet it was their "low water technique" After enough of that we pushed off of the bar and drifted down. Did manage one nice 9lb cromer w/ a plug. But other then that didn't see any.

why dont ya look a little closer all my fish are hooked inside the mouth! Maybe if you used a longer leader you would have hooked more fish.

Jealously :rolleyes:

longer leaders dont neccesarily mean flossing. There are other reasons in certain areas.

It's cotton wood seed that sinks and sticks to everything you fish with. It's a great big pain in the a** because you never know if your bait is covered with it, which = MORE casts and less time in the water fishing. If the water was up to about 4500 cfs it would clean it out, but with the low flow it'll be there awhile.

Im not saying everyone all the time catching fish is flossing. The four guys I saw hooking fish had super long leaders. I fished 4-6's, compared to their 8-12'ers. Sorry for the confusion.

RiverLiver,

Are you sure it's the cottonwoods? Cottonwood trees are abundant along almost all the rivers I've fished, but I don't recall seeing this amount of slimy junk in any river that wasn't polluted. This reminded me more of river reaches downstream of large sewage treatment plants or pulp mills. Maybe take a closer look this weekend.

Sincerely,

Salmo g.

This sounds like the stuff that seems to pile up along the bottom every summer just below the confluence of the Sultan River and the Sky. The City's sewer outfall is located there as well and I hate to say it but the stuff lookes like old tolilet paper fibers...YUCK!

BD

There are know sewer out flows on the that part of the cow, It's cottonwood I've been down at Blue cr and it looks like it just snow in the parking lot.I hate that cottonwood if the flow was right it would all be gone.

You guys think Cottonwood trees f*ck the river up, try having two HUGE ones just over your backyard fence! Those trees are Satan incarnate I tell ya...

Sorry fellas.......it is indeed fillamentous algae as Salmo mentions. we have the same crap here on the Wynoochee every June/mid-July. It seems to be worse the past decade locally. Warm-water, above average sunny days(mild spring) and high nutrient loads all contribute. The algae's life cycle seems to endure 2-3 months before dying off. Some years it appears mid-June; other years, like this year, it started showing in early may......again, locally. I attribute it to our warm, mild spring.

I count the days waiting for the stuff to die off (and it will) so I can drift a bait without reeling in a foot of "snot" attached to my rig.......probably a good time frame to go bobber and jig.

You guys all mention cottonwoods but I can't help but wonder if it's as simple as cow poop in unchecked/unfenced riverside pastures contributing to a high nutrient load?

Whatever the case, it is indeed a pain in the arse.

i always thought it was cottonwood junk. it's not really slimy at all, it just looks like it when it's wet. just seems like cotton balls floating down the river

I'm sticking with cotton wood seed that has sunk and floats suspended until it's saturated enough and than rolls along the bottom and collects that nice puke green look. If you fish the faster water there is a minimal amount of it . The water temps last time I checked were 48 - 49 degrees quite a bit colder than July temps. Last year was the first year it was a real pain in the a** on the Cow that I can recall.

Filamentous algal bloom, no doubt. Flares up with any imbalance in nutrient load, low flows, warm flows.

The Wynoochee post was right on. This "toilet paper" stuff even happens in Alaska. Anybody fish the early run kings on the Kenai the first two weeks of June in 2001. Couldn't keep a back- trolled/bounced line in the water more than two minutes. One big Killey dump mid-month took care of it in a hurry.

I'm probably just another Know-It-All High School Biology teacher here, but.....

The #1 cause of abnormal algae blooms is nutrient inbalance and the #1 cause of nutrient imbalance is the inorganic fertilizers we use.

It all runs off of your lawn/crops sooner or later and it all winds up in the rivers....where it causes that green slimy s*@t we all hate.

Cause and Effect

Gottago scent you are a teacher can you come down and get some samples and test them to end this arguement.

I was on the Cow on Monday and experienced the gobs of unsightly wet toilet paper coming down the river. It definetly made for an unpleasant experience and resulted in alot of down time in having to clean off your hook every cast.
Cotton Seed...NOT.
This is definitely a biological growth. If you look at the river bottom every rock is covered with this snotty fibrous grayish white toilet paper slime. Undoubtedly the cause behind this is increased nutrient loading into the river (phosphorous & nitrogen). Probably someone's septic tank is leaching into the river upstream. I hope they locate the source and put a stop to it. In the mean time the Cowlitz may come to be know as the "River of Snot."

Can You Say Cottonwood Tree Bloom.

The same thing happened last year.

If they raise the flow it will be gone.

Cottonwood gets my vote. Was down a couple of weeks ago. When I cleaned the boat last week there was some dried up on the gunnels.
It was very fiberous, just like cotton wood.

based on my examinations (and I am NO expert but, I see the snow storms of cotton wood seed in may), i am voting cotton wood until we get test data that shows its the algae stuff...

I was there this AM and just looked at it real close. Cottonwood 100%

For those of you who think it is Cottonwood, answer the following questions:

1) Why has this not been a problem every year?

2) Why was this substance still flowing down the river last fall & winter, long after the cottonwoods quit blooming?

3) How much Cottonwood fiber would it take to load the river up with the volume of gunk coming down it?

Remember how low the level of the lakes got over the past couple of years? Warm water mixed with a possible higher load of nutrients and you have algae bloom. The stuff is GROWING in the river. Was there over the holiday weekend and the volume of algae coming down the river was way more than all the cottonwood trees in Lewis County could produce and this stuff is coming down 24/7. I am sold on algae. Anybody with scientific proof?

I have to go with the natural groth of the scum from up river. I was at Mayfiel lake last week and watched this nasty stuff bubble up from the shallows in small sheets then float float off with the current. I talk to the people on the smart side of town WDF??? and they explained that as the water warms uo the algea ferments on the bottom and floats to the top. Still keeps getting worse every year and that can be atributed to the greater amount of fertalizers finding there way to the rivers.

There may be two subsatnces in the river.

The stuff on my line had small seeds in it and was clearly waterlogged cottonwood. White and dark grey no green whatsovever.

Those of you who think there is no sewer outfall on the Cowlitz River need to think again. The Cowlitz salmon and trout hatcheries represent the second largest fish hatchery in the world, last I heard. The fish waste and feed waste coming from the hatcheries probably equal the nutrient load coming from the sewage treatment plant of a small town. This type of algae doesn't need really warm water; high 40s and low 50s is plenty warm enough.

Sincerely,

Salmo g.

From what I've heard the problem does not exist above the trout hatchery. Trout hatchery outfall maybe the problem?

Cottonwood!

Cottonwood!

I fished it on Sat and it definately was NOT cottonwood.

I was fIshing there again this wed and thurs.
As a bassfishermen I have had every known type of algae on my line. From the green goo, to Elodea densi.

The whitish brownish crap getting stuck on everybodys line is Cottonwood that has been in the river long enough for Algae to grow on it!

BTW, its really slow at Bluecreek right now I only hooked 9 fish yesterday and 7 the day before, hardly worth the trip.

Micro...
Now that's a common sense answer that cant lose
Is everyone happy now, you're ALL right!

RL

I'm also joining the Cottomwood bandwagon.

The main reason for less above BC, is up river there are more fir and less Cottonwood trees.

Go look below I-5, it's even worse ....ton's of cottonwood trees.

Exotic Species??
If this is cottonwood it's growing and replicating itself underwater and creating a dense blanket all over the bottom of the river.
Maybe its an exotic macrophyte species that will come to be known as aquatic cottonwood. Make sure to clean your boats off so it doesn't get spread to another water body. It would be a real bummer if all our rivers became filled with wads of grey toilet paper snot.

It's definitely cottonwood seed. I live a mile from the Cowlitz between Toledo and CR. The river is lined with huge cottonwoods. It looks like a blizzard from about mid May until early July. The crap stays in the river into August. I hooked and caught a 15lb summer run last year just above Toledo I was fighting 15lbs of fish and about the same weight in cotton seed. It sucked but well worth the effort. This stuff may look like algae as many have stated, it does have algae that sticks to it as it rolls along and bounces off rocks. You can tear it apart and see the tiny black seeds in the middle of those doughy balls. I see they've upped the flow out of Mayfield to over 5000 cfs today. It should help root that junk out and flush up some more steelies.