for those that are interested, there was a clay slide that went halfway across the river today. The slide occurred about 2 miles above the Tamihi bridge in what is known as "Slesse park". The river is super muddy from there down stream and it's anybody's guess of when the lower 2/3rd of the river will be fishable again. It sucks to fish winter steelhead in BC now.

Is that the slide that they had spent years working to stabilize?

Yes, its the same one. From what I understand, the improvments on the clay bank only covered about half of the slide. Funding ran out and the second half was left as is. I believe that todays slide happened on the second half of the clay bank, the part where the money ran out

As I recall when the first half went out it ruined the lower part of the river for months. What a bummer!

I was just thinking of going up thier and checking it out to. Is thier still river to fish?

The news on the Vedder is bad news, we have been fighting a major clay bank on the Nooksack for 15+ years, between mother nature, the army corp of engineers and everyone else that has their finger in the pot, the Nooksack remains cloudy below the clay bank every time the river comes up or there is a 1/4 " of rain. Not that a whole lot of folks are not tryiong to make it better, but it just doesn't seem to improve. The other factor is there are other slides on the South fork that keep it colored much of the time . Whether it is the Nooksack , Vedder, Skagit or Stilly our stewardship or lack there of has come home to roost. Hopefully we can continue to work on habitat and stream restoration to stabilize these rivers. Was looking forawrd to heading up to the Vedder, hope it is fishable in the next couple of months on the lower end. You have to play with the hand your dealt.

with the cold weather, the river is fishable for the whole length after the first blast of clay washed away. The big thing will be when it warms up and what happens every time it rains. Fishing is still ok out there for now.

Slides can really ruin a river. Slide stabilization is my profession, and it is rarely easy to fight mother nature (But it is always fun and interesting!). How did they "stabilize" the slide on the Vedder? My guess is that they got really fancy with filter criteria, willow sticks, and rip rap. Anyone know what there approach was?
thanks,
Neal