Methow Steelhead Opening 2024

I gave up on steelheading quite a while ago, but this will likely drive me back.

Yes, I will fish indicators, yes I will park and watch that indicator float in between several other lines. Yes I will give flies away to gear and fly guys alike!

Or I’ll stay home, not sure yet.
 
Buzzy said:
I remember a little side channel low down that you knew quite well.

I did not think the Methow would open for steelheading; I'm surprisede and happy for the opportunity. Some rain would be nice.
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Pretty sure the one time I met @BDD in person was on the pullout for said side channel.
 
Buzzy said:
View attachment 129500

Different rock, Sage rod (it didn't break even with that mega-bend) and a much younger me. No Mercury. Man, I love that river.
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So I kinda lied - here's my photo, but it's actually the moment the fish spit the hook out.
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Was able to find a few more photos from back in the day, too. Not all the same spot obviously.

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Lots more I wish I could find. I'll need to go on a more thorough search someday.
 
jeradjames said:
I’ve never fished for steelhead but I’m going to give it a go. Is a 2 hander necessary for that section or is a single hand 7-8wt okay?
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Be sure to read between the lines in this thread: It is going to be VERY busy. Do not expect to get productive water to yourself. If you go in knowing this is going to be the case, you won't be as disappointed.

Fish whichever rod you like best. There's lots of back cast room on most runs in the lower river. If you're planning to swing, 2handers make it less effort, but sometimes an old school single hander is fun too. If you do go 2hander, think like 11' 6wt - not a beefy 13'6" 8wt or something. It's a small river as it is, and the water level right now is lower than I think I ever fished it back in my heyday.
 
Evan B said:
Pretty sure the one time I met @BDD in person was on the pullout for said side channel.
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Yes, I remember that well...I kinda thought I was meeting a celebrity or something. I remember feeling a little sheepish at first because I was carrying an 8 weight and a spoon rod but then I noticed a spoon dangling at the end of your rod and I thought the exact opposite of this.

 
Am I the only one that doesn't understand why they only opened it up to Burma?
If it were early in the year, it would make a little more sense, but I have to imagine at this point a good portion of the clipped fish area already up river a ways. If the goal is to get rid of hatchery fish (which it is), why not open her up full tilt?
 
Long_Rod_Silvers said:
Am I the only one that doesn't understand why they only opened it up to Burma?
If it were early in the year, it would make a little more sense, but I have to imagine at this point a good portion of the clipped fish area already up river a ways. If the goal is to get rid of hatchery fish (which it is), why not open her up full tilt?
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Yeah I wondered that as well. I don't really see what they're accomplishing with this limited opening. Especially since the fish actually migrate up and down this river, even moreso during the middle of winter. Many fish actually go back to the Columbia when things get really icy. Only thing I can think of is the low water and protecting the spawning salmon right now. There would be a lot of trampling over chinook redds in some popular spots.
 
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I talked to WDFW staff yesterday after our meeting, and why the Wenatchee is not open. Both systems have different criteria that needs to be met first and as of right now, the Wenatchee requirements have not been achieved.

Regarding the location, it was partly due to the percentage of natural origin and hatchery origin fish (based on PIT tags) that have been detected at the PIT arrays. There were more wild fish farther up in the system and more hatchery fish down lower, percentage wise. It's a good reminder that the objective of this fishery is to remove excess hatchery fish from the system. If you don't plan on bonking your first two hatchery fish and stop, this is not the fishery for you. However, that may prove more difficult than it sounds for a lot of folks, on both accounts (catching two hatchery fish and stop fishing if you do).
 
HMMMM I might be coming down with steelhead fever….

I went into that epic 2010 Methow season planning on just fishing dries. I quit fishing dries after a couple of hours because I wanted to try something different since I was hooking steelhead on dries easily…
 
Yeah y’all’s hype is contagious, just sayin’.
 
Pretty amazing the decent condition of those fish considering how far they've swam. I've probably caught a few Methow fish much closer to home in CR trib mouth fisheries. At those spots in July-August, they have so much fat they're almost dangerous to grill. No joke, I've found flames 2' high after going into the house for less than a minute.
 
SilverFly said:
Pretty amazing the decent condition of those fish considering how far they've swam. I've probably caught a few Methow fish much closer to home in CR trib mouth fisheries. At those spots in July-August, they have so much fat they're almost dangerous to grill. No joke, I've found flames 2' high after going into the house for less than a minute.
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I'm sure I caught one or two down here in July this year :ROFLMAO:
 
I'm going. It's been too long since I've been able to fish steelhead. Hoping I get a good enough start to make it to my favorite spot first.
 
It's gonna be like when a new In N Out or Chick fil A opens. No thanks. Glad it's opening though.
Interesting they are making Burma the upper boundary. I'm an amateur PIT geek. Love checking out the data and following specific fish from year to year. Yeah, like I said...geek.

Here's the breakdown of hatchery vs wild observed at the LMR - Lower Methow River PIT tag observation site filtered by the following for the current year-
Release date= 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023 and only July 26th to now.
First Observed Time= July 26th to now.
Before the filter, the total count was 800 steelhead. Post filter only 130. Lots of little dudes headed down, which is normal. 130 out of 800 is actually really good.

This cuts out nearly all the out-migrating smolts and kelts. Yes, plenty of upper Columbia & Snake fish spawn and go back for another dip in the ocean. Extraordinary.
It's my attempt to only count fish coming upriver this year and not all the little guys going back & forth in river. Btw, plenty of little guys go down into the Columbia and then come back up. Even go below Rock Island and then come back within the summer. Rock Creek (Klickitat County) do the same thing. I'm sure many big C tribs fish do this.
July 26th is roughly the first day I see adult fish, which seems about right. Could I have missed a June or earlier July migrant?? For sure, but not many.

1728712743353.png

Now here is the same count (my best effort) at Carlton site-
Total steelhead pre-filter is 1101.
Total post filter is 29 steelhead & 1 rainbow. Quite a difference, but the Carlton observer could be better at detecting little guys compared to adults. Also, it's still fairly early for Carlton. Or the percentage of tagged fish didn't return well. Either way, it looks like my filter might be comparable to what they used to determine that Burma should be the line. Way higher percentage of wild fish at Carlton.

1728714338183.png

So while I think it's a bit odd to make Burma the line I can see why they chose it. If they are depending on PIT tagging then they really had no choice.

Feel free to geek out yourself. https://www.ptagis.org/
Just remember...these are only tagged fish. No clue what the percentage of tagged fish, but it varies stream to stream and even mark day to mark day. Some streams depend on electro shocking. Others are at a hatchery. I do know it can be a decent way to gauge run timing. And just some really crazy life histories.
Like 3DD.003E1AF582. This fish was trapped and tagged at Sherars Falls on the Deschutes on 10/12/2022, observed at JO1 (John Day South Fish Ladder) on 12/31/2022 and then presumably spawned in Rock Creek since it's observed on RCL (Rock Creek River mile 5 km) multiple times in March & April of 2023. And it was a 29" fish when marked at Sherars! That's a big fish for Rock Creek. If you've ever seen it, you know.
 
skyriver said:
It's gonna be like when a new In N Out or Chick fil A opens. No thanks. Glad it's opening though.
Interesting they are making Burma the upper boundary. I'm an amateur PIT geek. Love checking out the data and following specific fish from year to year. Yeah, like I said...geek.

Here's the breakdown of hatchery vs wild observed at the LMR - Lower Methow River PIT tag observation site filtered by the following for the current year-
Release date= 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023 and only July 26th to now.
First Observed Time= July 26th to now.
Before the filter, the total count was 800 steelhead. Post filter only 130. Lots of little dudes headed down, which is normal. 130 out of 800 is actually really good.

This cuts out nearly all the out-migrating smolts and kelts. Yes, plenty of upper Columbia & Snake fish spawn and go back for another dip in the ocean. Extraordinary.
It's my attempt to only count fish coming upriver this year and not all the little guys going back & forth in river. Btw, plenty of little guys go down into the Columbia and then come back up. Even go below Rock Island and then come back within the summer. Rock Creek (Klickitat County) do the same thing. I'm sure many big C tribs fish do this.
July 26th is roughly the first day I see adult fish, which seems about right. Could I have missed a June or earlier July migrant?? For sure, but not many.

View attachment 129700

Now here is the same count (my best effort) at Carlton site-
Total steelhead pre-filter is 1101.
Total post filter is 29 steelhead & 1 rainbow. Quite a difference, but the Carlton observer could be better at detecting little guys compared to adults. Also, it's still fairly early for Carlton. Or the percentage of tagged fish didn't return well. Either way, it looks like my filter might be comparable to what they used to determine that Burma should be the line. Way higher percentage of wild fish at Carlton.

View attachment 129704

So while I think it's a bit odd to make Burma the line I can see why they chose it. If they are depending on PIT tagging then they really had no choice.

Feel free to geek out yourself. https://www.ptagis.org/
Just remember...these are only tagged fish. No clue what the percentage of tagged fish, but it varies stream to stream and even mark day to mark day. Some streams depend on electro shocking. Others are at a hatchery. I do know it can be a decent way to gauge run timing. And just some really crazy life histories.
Like 3DD.003E1AF582. This fish was trapped and tagged at Sherars Falls on the Deschutes on 10/12/2022, observed at JO1 (John Day South Fish Ladder) on 12/31/2022 and then presumably spawned in Rock Creek since it's observed on RCL (Rock Creek River mile 5 km) multiple times in March & April of 2023. And it was a 29" fish when marked at Sherars! That's a big fish for Rock Creek. If you've ever seen it, you know.
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Stacy -
What's your history with PIT tags and ptagis.org? Just a geek that loves to look at the data accumualated? Or? Pretty cool that you've graphed data from Metehow PIT tag readings.
 
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