Bummer. Too bad there's no steelhead groups that lease land and give back to sportsmans. Or some wealthy fella that'll get the lease and sell keys.

What?! A timber company acting all greedy? Unheard of! I would rather see it shut off then sell keys to a bunch of inclusive P.O.S. Bob R

If timber companies instead of developers owned all the stream banks we would have a ton more fish.

I say lock it up and plant trees.

That being said I do feel sorry for my friends who chose to base their careers in the area because of the great fishing once offered.

WOW!!!!! Now that is a change......Positive side, evens out the access for power boats...during periods of "runable water", like right now.

Would be a "walk in" area during the summer months...

I think the WDFW is looking at this in a small way. Blake has been working on getting money for the purchase of the 7400 line as well as the Beaver Slide put in. This is being done through the supplemental capital budget process. One roadblock on the process is representative Tharinger. Please contact him to have him put the funds into the capital budget.

https://app.leg.wa.gov/pbc/memberEmail/24/2

That way if Green Diamond does decide to go through with the sale, WDFW has the funding needed.

Are you certain of that?

The USFWS non traditional section 6 conservation grant program CAN be used to secure conservation easements.

Under eligible projects in the WWRP page it says "Acquisition includes the purchase of perpetual interest in real property or non-perpetual interests such as leases and easements."

An easement can be perpetual, or it can be for a fixed period of time, with renewals, like a lease.

The state then would be required to manage the easement for the duration of the term of the easement.

OK, ok, I give........been up and down the Wynoochee River for many years.....where the heck is the Beaver Slide put in??????? Maybe its at a place that others call some else??????

WDFW has chosen NOT to do this. There were places on the Humptulips, the Wynoochee and the Satsop, that active partition on part of the Agency...public would have many access points, "on 99 year leases".

Hope WDFW can get it done????? I just don't see much wiggle room in the State budget for anything, UNTIL the School funding Court mandated, is fully taken care of. Kids should come 1st, they are the leaders of tomorrow.

The Beaver Slide is aptly named, although I've never seen a beaver on it. It's basically a trail through the woods that comes out at the bottom of the Wynoochee Gorge. It's really not much of a put-in for anything larger than a pontoon, but I've seen guys beat the crap out of a drift boat on it. I'm sure you'd know the place if I showed you on a map (I will NOT be posting a map, just in case it gets opened up again some day).

The annual cost of negotiating a lease is generally fairly small compared to a lump sum payment. Also, the grant monies help reduce out of pocket costs.

Does anyone know the the structure of the lease as proposed by GD?

Thanks for the information..........I fished an area, with Larry Eddlemen, back in the mid 80's. We put his drift boat in waaaay above Sheafer Ck., there was no 7400 bridge, and I remember roping that boat down a long steep hill.

We did that float a few times, summer time, never saw anyone the whole way to White Bridge. I've posted many times, how beautiful the Wynoochee River is.....always upset me, to have this river closed, last winter closing was terrible.

Its by save creek. Or at least that is the old usgs station I would check before fishing. Did they change the USGS station? You want a long rope. Been 10 plus years since I have fished it. A little more technical than the lower river. Beautiful water. Don't bring bait. Drifter that would be a helluva long float in summer flows.

We never used a rope, and launched a db there without much hassle other than getting the bow under the big fir tree that used to lay across the slide.

Haven't done that drift in a few years, though.

The gamies keep a pretty good eye on that stretch though, so don;t bring bait, and don't fish from your boat.

Doesn't matter much anymore unless we can get some access!

The fishing from a boat restriction went away a few years ago. The bait stuff is still in place though.

So what happened to the Save Creek USGS station?

If its icy, you want a rope.

Nothing. It's still there.

Wish I could say the same for the access.

Back in the day.....NO BAIT restrictions, no float/jigs.....plugging, spinners, and sand shrimp/eggs was the standard. Early put in, before 4 a.m., if we got to Carter Ck. and there was a couple of boat trailers, we just floated out...cast spinners and cast bait......those were the days!!!!

No cell phones, no internet, actual not many computers, not many people even fished summer run.....fewer drift boat for the whole summer, than I see in one weekend now. Xhit, 30+ years has flown by, so glad my career allowed me the summer off, fished lots, every day, day light until about 9.

Yup the good old days back before AIDS.