East fork was clear today, but anything below the middle fork was pretty muddy. I only managed Jacks today, but a couple VERY big (for how early it is) and bright coho caught. River came up a lot today, started standing on gravel bar and ended up standing in a foot and half of water. Coho aren't as snappy as I would like to see them, if I could get thru the jacks that is. I think half the time they were eating my eggs before an adult could get to them.

I was go blown away by how much the river had changed and focusing on catching fish, that I didn't think to snap a photo. See my diagram below.



Stormy's backyard is the new river channel. He put in a massive rock wall this summer to save his property. It's definitely a fishy looking spot. The corner below his property is the part people will need to worry about. Yesterday(@ 450ish CFS) the river was braided into three shallow chutes that then dropped into a deep pool. 3 of us jumped out and fished while another guy bumped down one of the runs. It would be impossible for a sled to get through there at those flows, but who knows what it'll look like now that the river is rising.

Here is a very rough diagram for you guys to reference. Stay safe people.

Cozmo:

Thanks, diagram is better than most pictures would show. Satsop river, past 10 years, has seen some major changes. Cook Creek to just above Baker Hole, has been the areas of greatest change......Mother nature is going to do what Mother nature does.

I agree with the "safe comment"...

Planned on floating it tomorrow morning from my cataraft. West fork to launch below hwy 12. I haven't floated it before and the gauge says it's at 4000cfs.

Should I skip it and find other waters?

It'll be totally blown out.

I'd skip it. Middle Fork confluence down will likely be a muddy torrent, adorned with arboreal debris, for most of the next week (if the forecast is even close to right about the amount of rainfall coming to the upper drainage). Safety may be a serious question, to say nothing of the fishing prospects.

Maybe drop the toon in the Chehalis around Elma and float down to Fuller? If it's running reasonably clear, that would be safer, and might be better fishing, too.

Thanks Flea,

It's a 14' and I'll have one person with me. I'm not familiar with anywhere to launch other than porter bridge upstream of fuller. Which would be like a 13 mile float.

Other idea was the Cowlitz Mission to i5.

Appreciate the info.

I'd suggest the Cowlitz over anything. Consistent 3400-ish CFS and people have been twitching a mix of species(steelies, chinook and coho).

Thaxor:

A 14-ft. Toon is a good deal harder to launch from just anywhere than an 8-footer (like mine). I was suggesting the South Elma bridge (Wakefield Rd.) as a put-in site for a float to Fuller. Probably only about 2-3 miles. I think you could get a 14-footer down there, but it would be a little work. Indeed, Porter to Fuller is a longer float than any sane person wants to do without at least a trolling motor.

Sounds like the Cowlitz might be the better option anyway. Enjoy!

Ended up floating the Cowlitz Mission to I5. Weather was great, light showers held off until 2pm. A few bright jacks right below the mission launch. A bunch of dark kings rolling in the same area.

Lots of springers spawning in the main channel. Turkey vultures (which I've never seen up close) chowing down on their remains. Hooked up briefly twitching a jig, probably a foul hooked boot springer.

After 5 hours of nothing I swung a 50/50 R&B spoon into a monster... squawfish... Caught a few hatchery king smolts.

I think the Kings were higher, coho were lower.

At the takeout a guy was cleaning a small coho, maybe 4-5lbs. Would have liked some more fish action but it was nice floating a new section of river.

I have trouble fishing the cowlitz, so much of it just seems like traveling water. And the holding water is real big and deep. The pockets where I expect there to be fish there's nothing. Not what I'm used to.

Thanks for the advice.

Here it is from the ground....



and one more from another vantage just downriver...



Riverfront property on the outside bend of that river leaves little comfort or security

google earth's map got updated the other day, and it shows the new river channel.

A real high water event and that house is toast.

The new channel at Storms is actually the old outlet for Mitchell Cr. Had a beaver pond lake for years before entering the river in front of the house. The main river just came over a lot more and gobbled up the real estate between the two.

I was part of a workgroup in Pierce County that was asking the public how to deal with channel migration. Many on the panel confused flooding and its effects with channel migration.

In flooding, the water comes up, spreads out, and goes down. Up to some depth structures can be protected/repaired. A person can probably live with some level of flooding on their land. It is also fairly predictable. At flow X the water is here, and so on.

In channel migration the whole stream moves to a new location. This is rather destructive to whatever structures are in the new channel. You house doesn't just get wet, it gets destroyed.

Some streams are fairly stable which suggests that structures can be closer than a stream that wanders a lot.

OK... so I looked at the new Google Earth.

It's a summertime pic at lower flows where Stormy built a small rip-rap "jetty" almost perpendicular to the new channel immediately upstream from the house to deflect the flow away from his bank.

Judging by the pics I took y'day, that didn't work out so well because it looks like he had to also armor the entire outside bend just downstream from that "jetty".... immediately adjacent to the house.

I wonder if a guy has to secure a shoreline EIS/permit for such work.... or does he simply go about performing the massive riparian alterations without permission and plead ignorance / beg for forgiveness after the fact?

The company I work for performs quite a bit of "in-water" work. I NEVER see a project where there isn't a least a HPA from WDFW, some type of Corps Permit, Dept of Ecology specific parameters, plus County shoreline management requirements. Depending on which body of water, there's a multitude of other possible players that need buy-in on the project. We're finishing a project now for a PUD hatchery intake screen, and even though it's been deemed "emergency work" the permits still were over a month out (which is a RECORD turn around). Most marinas, boat launches, habitat enhancement projects and dredging operations take 2-5 years for all the permits to be acquired.

Begging for forgiveness isn't really an option, at least in my local area. I've witnessed a couple examples this year where the unauthorized work was removed and the land owner and the Contractor were forced to pay the removal fee, including the restoration cost, as well as a fine.

Part of my job is reviewing all the permits for a project that I'm bidding, which regulates how the work can be performed. If we can't perform the work by the parameters, I won't even bid the job. Too much liability.

I would bet that there was no permit for this.

Just another insurance claim waiting to happen. Wonder if permit status affects insurance claims....

I took a look at historical aerial photos for this section of river and its easy to see the cause of the problem. Photos show that sometime between 2004 and 2005 most of the trees on that property were removed and the land became a field. The lack of trees allowed the river the begin to migrate and eventually form the new channels that are threatening this home now. Its pretty obvious that a old river channel was there historically and once the timber was removed the river came right back into that low spot with a lot of force. Better protection of the riparian trees could have prevented this, this is the type of riverian habitat loss that all too often frequents our precious rivers.