Chehalis River and tribs. Salmon 10/01 - 11/30/18

September 17, 2018

This speaks to the Chehalis and tribs. ONLY

No legal Chinook anywhere.......I was going to break it down by rivers but decided it was "more than I wanted to handle".

No legal fishing in the Chehalis or tribs. until October 1.....

Some areas 1 fish only, some areas may be 1 hatchery OR 1 wild, some areas 2 hatchery, no wild. I suggest you decide where you are going to fish....THEN KNOW THAT AREA. Some areas only 1 fish is legal down river of a bridge and 2 hatchery above the bridge.


If you want to salmon fish, right now, in Grays Harbor then your options are the Humptulips OR the Westport or Ocean Shores Boat Basins. In the boat basins the limit is 4 adults, Coho only....the boat basins have a closing date of January 31, 2019

When is a good time to fish the Westport boat basin?

Are there salmon that return to the ocean shores basin? I have never heard of that.

http://www.westportgrayland-chamber.org/pdfs/BoatBasinDerbyRules.pdf

Washington Sport Fishing Rules, P 101, about half way down the page is the rules on the Boat Basins...…..

Do people catch them ?????? Some do, some don't......not my kind of fishery but I will go to Westport to kill some time until 10/01....

I believe it was few years ago (Rivrguy) would know, that the Excellence in Management Group decided to lower the Chinook escapement goal in the GH basin (maybe just the whole Chehalis) to better describe and attain MSY. Now, a harvest of zero is sustainable and significantly reduces management costs for planning/monitoring/etc. so maybe they were right.

The QIN submitted to the governing bodies data that supported their position that the Chehalis Chinook escapement goal be reduced and it was accepted and not opposed by WDFW. The Hump Chinook escapement goal was increased some. The actions are built around MSY.

yep, more uncontested smoke and mirrors that we pay for by bending over and grabbing our ankles.

copied this from Willapa posting...



I've been to Aberdeen the past few days......QIN is getting fish, gill netters are taking some fish, set netters behind the Mall had fish hitting the net, Rivrguy and I waiting for a while to see if they would "pick the fish", we both wanted to see number and kind but they never showed while we were there.

QIN also nets 9/30 - 10/02.....I would hope QIN shares the catch numbers with WDFW, quickly, gut feeling is there will be fish for the sport season.


Chinook and Coho jack fishing was OK, not great, and there were a few adults that were released or broke off...…..


Do the fish need rain???? Yes, I'd say it would help both Willapa and Grays Harbor but we all know what can happen....once it starts it can get ugly fast and some years it stay ugly.

As I recall the fish in the boat basin are planted by the high school. They are just doing laps around the basin as there is no place for them to go when they return.

It really doesn't matter how QIN does unless they get significantly more than modeled in the pre-season. The NT fish were taken in the ocean. Once the numbers get balanced then there may be a shot for river fishing.

The NI side has consistently chosen to take as much of its share of salmon as possible in marine fisheries, whether rec, troll, or incidental net harvest in Fraser directed fisheries. The rivers get the the remainder, if there is any share left.

The Time for reform at the international level has come. The Magnuson-Stevens Act needs to be addressed. I support the gathering of information to make better decisions.
https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/senate-bill/1520

More terminal fisheries would benefit the Orcas as well.

X10!

Finally someone else mentions marine fishing activities. The $$ that come from that has seemed to deter little or any restraint because of the "Economic Benefits". I agree, time to put the clamps down in the Ocean for all users to get more back to the rivers than what is occurring now. Getting closer the brink every year especially during poor condition years.

http://www.piscatorialpursuits.com/forum...html#Post877033

Getting back to the rivers would have huge ecological benefits. The first is that a lot less gas would be spent chasing something that will eventually come right to you.

The fish will be larger, they will be older (Chinook could eventually add years to ocean grazing), the stocks will be way more separate.

If, for example, 100% of the harvest of WB salmon of each species occurred inside the bay and rivers then everybody in the watershed would have a real stake in making sure they had good ecosystems. Why protect the stream banks if you are just feeding Westport Charters or Tofino/Uculet or Sitka?

Oddly enough, early in the Boldt Years Ernie Brannon proposed in a paper (I have somewhere) proposed that management be overseen and conducted by local within-watershed managers. Maybe the time has come......

Just so you know. QIN will be netting Monday and Tuesday, Tuesday until noon.

Most of the netting activity is above the 101 Bridge but there are some gill net boats that will be below the bridge.

You do what you want with this information....

Remember also.....1 fish limit, hatchery or wild...……..

Release Adult Chinook

As we go through the recent spate of closures and openings remember that this is how in-season management is supposed to work as opposed to auto-pilot management.

I don't know all the data WDFW has, if they really do in-season updates, etc. but you manage with the numbers you have. If the run size is X and a fishery is allowed Y then when the catch data equals Y the fishery is closed. It gets reopened when some new data shows a larger run size. Not the number of jumpers or rollers (These used to actually be used in management) but an actual quantifiable number. This can be rack counts at hatcheries, spawner surveys, etc.

On a creek I was working on we went through a really long freeze-up from November to late January. Creek, and most everything else, froze. Stream temp was 30-31 in the flowing parts. Under a large alder there was a school of 200 coho that waited those 3 months for warmer water. Every week the spawner survey showed those 200. When the weather changed, they boogied upstream or spawned on the riffle between the tree and the trap. Moral of the story is that these were pretty much the only coho in the creek below the trap. Somebody who happened to look into that pool could conclude the creek was plugged with coho.

they're out for the majority of October, then back in November for late coho, I mean steelhead.

Does anyone work any more???????

I was on the Chehalis, in my normal area, SO WERE 14 OTHER BOATS and bankies were out in big numbers.....I never saw a fish caught, never saw a fish even roll. Did I fish all day, nope but I'll be there tomorrow, Oh I don't work any more but I did until I retired...

It has been observed that the license-buying public is getting older. And, consequently, are retired. So, there will be more folks out there but when they quit the license-buying public will really shrink.

Melanie and I went out yesterday, caught one chinook jack and that was it. One drive by a little later but nothing after that. Only saw one person with a fish on, he released a chinook. Really slow, thought a lot of fish would move up but Bill's post shows that's not the case. Anyone else seeing any fish? We'll go out tomorrow, but don't have a good feeling about this run of silvers. Bob R

Staff are waiting for qin numbers, they asked but nothing yet. Other than that the nets are the most in recent years and have been getting fish. Thing is this. Just as the last three years it rained early and everything that was staging shot up, no staging low. They are coming in gun metal bright moving steadily upstream. Not racing but moving at nice easy pace. The rub is we sat under a very good high pressure, very bright sun, dropping flows to below average but DO and water temp is good. Then as the weather changed it was the QIN's second set so missing the QIN numbers it is hard to say for sure just what is what.


They pull at noon today so we should see what's up by Wen or Thursday. Keep in mind this is a small run year shot gunned by the rain which means spotty catches. Find them stay on them. If you loose them get up to get in front of them.