BAD NEWS for the Chehalis Basin

QIN cancels gillnetting for Chehalis steelhead for the next 11 stat weeks.

http://www.quinaultindiannation.com/Fishing%20Regs/chehalis%20commercial.pdf

WDFW site shows the closure effective Stat Week 6-16

https://wdfw.wa.gov/fishing/tribal/net-schedules#south-coast

That takes the closure all the way thru mid-April.

Well I cannot figure out how they got what they did. River has been blown for most of the month that guy near Walmart looked lonely.
https://wdfw.wa.gov/fishing/tribal/landings#chehalis

Seems a bit premature. I wonder if this will translate into closures for recreational anglers?

I dont get it. How is this a bad thing? The river has been puking for weeks. when the tribs have been in shape fishing had been great. like every boat down the river had fish. they'll have enough for brood stock fish so a closure dosnt seem likely unless they base it off of they dont fish we dont fish.

A little birdy told me it's a done deal.........

Probably about like the BS closure of all fishing for Springers.

Time to vent. This is one of the worst seasons I've ever had. 1 fish is all for me. Can't catch a weather break. Frustrating! Out or borderline conditions even on smaller streams all year so far with the rain continuing into the foreseeable future. I made the mistake of waiting until after Xmas to start, but so few fish were showing then I waited. Wonder, was their just no fish showing is why they are closing the Chehalis. With all the water this season I would have guessed the Nooch hatchery run would have gotten up by now and the tribal netting having a heyday. Must just be a comprehensive poor return season. Wonder if other rivers will close for the season.

PS steelhead hatcheries have just barely made their broodstock requirements. This has got to be the worst steelhead returns ever. I suspect it's a coastwide thing, not just WA since BC reports are also very bad.

It's not as simple as being a good fishable day highliner Jake. Ya' gotta' add up the total catch for the total number of days to assess the season. From what I'm hearing, this is worst ever.

CA was reporting some bad returns, too. Kind of amazes me in this day and age with the communication webs we have that there is not a coastwise report in real time. Hell, we used to call other agencies up to see if they were seeing what we were seeing. Ya know, get as much information as possible....

Or not.

Fishing was great all 5 days of january that were fishable

anything on Oregon rivers ? saw poor reports early on. checking the hatchery returns some rivers have ok numbers but then most seem pretty poor. Obviously Puget sound is the worst. I guess the closer the river is to the ocean the better your returns will be.

If the tribe is closing it down then I trust it's for good reason. If the state closed it, no one would trust the decision at all.

I like to know the reason, the QIN is closing the fishery. There has not been much QIN pressure.....1 set net.

As many of you know there is a fish trap on the Wynoochee, about 2 miles below the dam.

I can tell you the total steel head that have been trapped is 154 hatchery. 81 of the hatchery steel head were trucked above the lake, Tacoma City Light does this part, and WDFW has taken 73 hatchery steel head to Lake Aberdeen for brood stock. 14 Native steel head have been taken by WDFW to the Lake Aberdeen hatchery.

I know there have been fish caught in the Wynoochee sport fishery but the total doesn't look very good off a 2018 winter steelhead plant of 171,000

I drove to the river today.....UGLY, UGLY, UGLY........Believe me, stay home....watch Super Bowl!!!

It's strange. Anecdotal evidence (fishing reports) was all negative in December, but every day I got out in January (wasn't many, but it was almost every decent weather window), I or somebody else I talked to had decent to good success. I haven't fished much in the Chehalis tribs this year, because the crowds have been pretty horrendous during the few weather windows, but around the same time, I started hearing reports of good fishing there. I was starting to think the fish were just showing late, but the hatchery numbers haven't shown the sort of uptick that should be expected in that scenario. Pretty sure the fish aren't wasting much time holding throughout the rivers in these conditions, so the reality must actually be pretty grim.

Maybe the reason we were having decent fishing in the few, brief windows we got in January was that whatever numbers we were fishing over, they were fresh, moving fish more often than not, and those seem to be better than average biters in my experience. Also weren't getting much pressure, mostly due to the conditions, and that never hurts. Perhaps more fishable days at normal flows would have provided a different perspective. Who really knows?

I really hope we don't get shut down, but if we do, I'll chalk it up as an unfortunate example of reasonable co-management, which is something I must say I'd like to see more of in the Chehalis Basin.

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