Anyone fish Grays Harbor over the weekend and willing to share a report?

We found a couple of coho today in the south channel. Didn't see a whole lot of action.

I appreciate your response yelloweye. Just trying to get an idea if it's
worth the trip down there.

OLYBEAV,
Well, I'll chime in here since I've posted a response on FB, and another fishing website. Since its been radio silence on your post.

But first noticed your from Lacey, your a heck of a lot closer to GH than me, that would be the first reason to go. Second, it was the opener, and if you've have fished it in the past, it should be an annual pilgrimage!!!

Lastly, since I'm in the fishing industry, and sell terminal tackle(especially sharp pointy one's) I encourage folks to get out and fish, if anything to share in the experience with family, fishing buddies, and to just get out from behind that computer, and breath the fresh air!!! It's good for one's soul!!!

OK, here's my report. The tides weren't the best, the weather didn't cooperate at times, and you could only keep 1 salmon. But, the wind did lay down for the best hour of the day, The High Water Bite!!! Come on, if you've experienced that you know what I'm talking about right!?!? When the Golden hour did come, boats were getting sideways everywhere, nets flying as if it were national net day, and a considerable amount of fish came over people's gunnels!!! In fact in one pass, we got sideways 3 times, and we only needed one more to get off the water so we could support the local economy and get some lunch!!!

Too bad we couldn't retain 2, 1 of each, but that's for another thread!!! Would it have been worth it to come and keep 2 sure. But for only 1 fish, maybe, would it be worth my time??? That's probably why I only counted 40 boats at any given time fishing. For the lucky ones that did catch fish and for the "Chosen People" that made the effort to come out and fish and catch their limit. To share it with their families, and there fishing buddies, and to have stories to tell there co-workers, other fishing friends that didn't come out that were on the fence, and down the road to tell the story to their grandkids.....I fished the opener at Grays Harbor in 2016, wish you could have been there!!! Well.......that's priceless!!! Don't waste your opportunity.

In closing "OB", we fished opening day, our boat had 7 bites, landed 4, and killed 2, since it was just me and the skipper. All on whole brined herring.

If you decide to go....Good Luck and Good Fishing,
Winterun

GHMP has a clause that did not allow Chinook keep other than hatchery. If you kept Coho any differently you would have had a two week season maybe. With low Coho it was 5% of run impact. Your lucky the Chinook forecast was what it was ( on paper ) or we would have been lucky to get the bay open at all.

I am below the Satsop a few miles on the Chehalis and did not see much being caught-alot of effort with boats and anglers.

Alot of rain past few days so it couldn't get worse.

More rain on the way, and a lot of it. If it settles down again, it will be as good as it's going to get (which I hope is a heck of a lot better than it's been for me on the river).

Your point is well taken Winterun. Like most of us, there are plenty of demands on my time so I try to make the best use of it. Wasn't needing a "hot" report to feel like a trip was worthwhile. I would have given up on my hunting and fishing endeavors long ago if it just was all about the catching and killing. I do appreciate when people are willing to share reports. I have tried to do the same when I could. Unfortunately for me today would have been my last chance to go until the middle of the month and I didn't do. Best of luck to all!

+1

Thanks heaven for "jacks", some Wild Chinook and Wild Coho but no legal adults in my boat. I've tried eggs, plugs, spinners, twitching, spoons....oh no, am I going to have to go back to trolling???????

Fished the Satsop today and it's hot...for sucker fish! Our boat must of hooked 20+ between twitching, spinners and eggs. No coho, no kings. Hell only saw one fish roll from the West Fork to the Highway. Dumped rain on us all day but at least the beer was cold.

Well, the rain has arrived here. Looks like the Satsop is up around 1500. Here come the fish. Finally.

Hey OLYBEAV!
I hope you didn't take this the wrong way, just wanted to get people jazzed about getting outdoors! My reply was just to get folks "thinking" and getting out and doing what we all have in common and that's fishing, with what little opportunities we have. But yeah, I understand how "life" gets in the way also. So we try to maximize our time outdoors, as best we can, of course when we have the chance to take advantage of it.
In fact with all this rain in the forecast, it should get things moving this week hopefully. But unfortunately, when things are starting to make that turn, and possibly look good for this weekend or maybe next week. I'll be out of town for work, go figure!!!
See you folks out there,
Winterun

OLYBEAV Fished below the Satsop yesterday lots of fish in the river biters not so many. I put one hatchery king in the boat and had a few missed opportunities seen a few others caught

According to the forecast, mud and whole trees will likely make their appearance very soon as well. Hope a few stay within the fishing boundaries until it settles down.

This reads like an FBI server investigation.

http://www.nwrfc.noaa.gov/weather/10_day.cgi What is coming is not pretty but more to come. http://www.nwrfc.noaa.gov/rfc/ and you can pick your area by forecast rain on the map on the 240 hour tab.

One can come up with your own forecast.
http://www.intellicast.com/Global/Satellite/Infrared.aspx?region=hipacsat&animate=true

Oh and if you haven't fished from the West Fork to the Highway in a while, the river is completely different by Stormy's property. We were able to dodge the stumps in the low flows but I'd imagine it could be alot more challenging with more water.

No camera in the boat?????? Would have been a perfect time to snap some pictures of the "Stormy's property area".

Hard to tell from the East or West Satsop roads just how the river flows in this area....

Good call, Cozmo. Has that reached a point where you can't go down what used to be the main channel to the right? Maybe at more normal flows, that would be the ticket? Stormy's backyard looks pretty inhospitable at normal fall flows, to your point.

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.

Quick update, a local friend in the know told me that this project was fully permitted.

Satsop went up to 19000 CFS with the last high water spike 2 nights ago. I wonder how well it's holding up?

There's a HUGE cut being eaten away just a ways up from the mouth. Wonder if the high water has finally cut a new main channel at the mouth.

October was a record month for rain in Aberdeen/Hoquiam. Not sure about November, but so far we've had measurable rain EVERY day but two for the month.

All the "crap" in the Chehalis, behind the mall....tells me "something, somewhere is cutting away something"....

No fishing, where I like to fish.....so its time to crank up the boat and go for a "lookie lou"....

On the eve of the Winter Solstice, I'm thankful for the certainty of lengthening daylight ahead, incrementally and progressively longer with each passing day. YEE HAW!

I'm also reminded of days gone by... the GLORY days of December coho ascending the streams flowing through the place I now call home.







Too bad I was born about 15-20 years too late.

Doc:

Thanks for the memories.....sorry you were born "late", I caught your share!!!!

Too many QIN nets, too many sports fishermen, has just about wiped out this "late run" of big hooknose Silvers and most of the Native steelhead, many of the steelhead were also 25+#.

Having worked with Late Coho the perception of what was and is is rather complex. So no book but rather this fact and it is simply that Late Coho under perform to the normal timed Coho at around 50% on adults which make it rather fragile portion of the run.

The real damage was and continues to be QIN nets and Rec pressure. Now before everyone's blood pressure tops 200 you have to know the history some. Old Game after Boldt was determined to limit the tribal netting of "Native Steelhead" so they imported Chambers Cr and several other Dec returning Steelhead and planted them all over to limit native Steelhead catch to the tribe. In around 84 I got into with the Bio about the fact that this was wiping out the Late Coho by targeting the tribe in this manner and his response? " That's the Dept of Fisheries problem" This gentlemen retired from WDF&W just a couple or so years ago.

On the Rec side back in DW's time ( that is wayyyyy back sorry but true ) it was mostly local folks and some fishers from around as most Rec harvest was on the Chehalis pre Boldt and some time after. Then came the fishers out of PS which was a trickle that damn near turned into a traffic jam. The other inconvenient fact is just like a good friend of mine who fought to the bitter end ( along with most sport fishers & organizations at the time ) to keep the Dec returning plants going knowing the impact on Late coho. The plants would have ended sooner I think but the Recs kept it alive.

So now it is the QIN doing the most damage fishing Steelhead when few are present other than the remnants of native / plants and Late Coho but it was old Dept of Game that set up the Steelhead harvest system to protect Native Steelhead and the Rec angler. I believe the saying what goes around comes around fits.

Can we not look at the Nisqually and figure out that it is possible to net the last fish?????????????????????????????????????????????