Search results

Coming out of this year's NOF somehow WDFW found enough monitoring dollars to schedule 267 days (likely to increase to 297 days depending on coho ISU) of salmon freshwater recreational fishing somewhere in the Skagit basin. Curt

I have to wonder what the current and future status of the Seattle City lights mitigation dollars is and how they are being spent? Curt

I think some sort of two prong approach is needed. I suspect the fast way to success is to go to the WDFW commission. The hope with a fish-in type approach is to catch the attention of the decision makers. Unfortunately, often those folks are so isolated that they may not even be aware of...

The last few years have been fishing a lake where a portion of the planted trout were horsefly fish (since 2021). In recent years it looks like about 28% of the plant has been horsefly fish, the rest were blackwaters. Typically, only about 15% my catch was consisting of the horsefly fish...

The horsefly rainbow can also bite you - they have well developed teeth (more like a cutthroat than a rainbow). They are found in the large lakes in the upper Fraser where they are well adapted to feed on smaller fish. Talked with a BC bio last year about the use of the hosrsefly rainbows in...

As a foundation for an Occupy Skagit 2.0 we should use the agency/commission's own policies. WDFW Commission policy C-3608 - 2024 -2028 North of Falcon states "The Department will implement this policy consistent with the following principles:": "Salmon and steelhead will be managed to...

I seem to remember that some of those early Tribal protesters end up arrested and spend some time in jail'

The world has changed since the early years of Occupy Skagit. If a new effort is to be successful it would need to engage the younger anglers. What is needed is an electronic approach rely on blogger/you tube type approach. A series of 2/3 minute videos produce with concise messages that...

Chris - You are correct, I meant 2021 not 2001. Corrected my posts. The last year summer steelhead were planted in NF was 2019.

Matt - The NF Stillaguamish Chinook are considered to be summer Chinook with some fish entering the river as early as late May with building numbers through the summer in the NF pools. The tribe typically collects brood stock (via seining those pools) around the middle of August. I believe it...

Coming out of NOF the season on the North Fork Stillaguamish for 2026 will be 8/29 to 11/30 from its mouth upstream to the Hwy 530 bridge (Cicero). I have followed the more than decade long struggle to maintain game fish season on the NF Stilly during the summer fairly closely. After several...

As always great questions! I think it would work the other way. For the moment let's assume that we start with 30 hatchery fish and 10 wild. in this case for every wild we can take 3 hatchery . However, if the number of wilds were cut in half giving us 5 wild and 30 hatchery. Now for ever...

With the Snohomish wild coho being a limiting factor I suspect the changing ratio of hatchery to wild coho in the basin played a factor. The hatchery coho tend to return earlier (earlier spawn timing) than the wild coho thus the later in the season (read October) the higher the impacts on the...

Next year's NOF may be even more challenging that this year. With modern day record floods in December on both the Snohomish and Skagit expect the pinks will return at levels well below escapement needs in those basins. Pink fisheries may well be pushed to MA 10 and areas to the south. The...

Just review the proposed freshwater regulations for the Skagit. Bull trout change a win- With the exception of the Hwy 530 to Rockport to Cascade Road bridge (Rockport to Marblemount) release of bull trout will be required. Suspect that Rockport to Marblemount exception may have been a...

I like that kind of "out of the box" thinking. Unfortunately, I don't think would "pencil out" as well as hoped. Typically, the Chinook impacts in the various fisheries fall into 3 buckets of impacts: 1) the "shaker" encounters/mortalities, 2) the unmarked encounters/mortalities, and 3) the...

Without a doubt those the take part in these winter season enjoy the opportunity and would like to see more such opportunities. That said the real question is how to best use the limited impacts of the ESA Puget Sound Chinook in crafting fishing opportunities. From WDFW's selective fishing...

While I first saw the green sunfish in Pass maybe 25 years ago reliable reports have them being in Pass at least 40 years and maybe as far back as the 1960s (there were reports of sunfish either bluegills or green sunfish depending on who was telling the story in the lake). To my knowledge...

Pink Nighty Not sure how the smallmouth and bluegill got into that storm water pond but am sure that the sticklebacks did not make that journey via a friendly duck. When sticklebacks spawn the make constructs a pretty elaborate nest. They construct basically a ball of vegetive materials with...

I have actually caught individuals illegally plant fish (aka bucket biologists) have also had others admit to being "bucket biologist". There are number of examples of exotic species being introduced in waters far from a source population. For example, in the last couple decades northern...