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Yesterday (3/03/2025) I repeated my unscientific bug count on the North Fork. I visited the same 3 sites and once again turned over 20 stones at each site counting the mayflies. Saw an increase in bugs in all 3 sites. At the Hazel site in 2024 had 2 mayflies, in 2025 I found 18 At the Grant...

Our steelhead do migrate west and north into the Pacific some of go west of the international dateline. Most of the coho stay along the coast and the continental shelf. Part of the issue with the steelhead is that with a warmer ocean their forage area is pushed further north into the Gulf of...

What is that 4 quakes in the last few days in the Puget Sound basin? None particularly large but have to wonder whether those quakes are just relieving stress or a sign of something larger in the offering. curt

In the Columbia River discussion in NOF the summer steelhead forecast was given. Not Good News! For the A stocks the hatchery forecast was 55,600 (last year's return was 121,576). The wild forecast was19,000 (last year's return was 36,543) For the B stocks the hatchery forecast was 11,800...

I agree with the dubbed fur (seal?) body. I think that the orange and yellow bodied flies on the right may have been tied drake gadwall flank feathers. I always have a few gadwall spiders in my cutthroat box as changeup flies. Also looks like there was some serious high grading in the flank...

Let's further explore some potential issues with wild steelhead brood stock programs. For this hypnotical river program, I assumed that we have a wild population of 500 wild winter steelhead adults from which 50 brood stock will be collected using hook and line. For key smolt/spawner and...

I assume the video in question is the recent video on the Sandy River brood stock program. I had watched it prior to this discussion and again before responding to this tread. Bottom line the video gives no information on the number of brood stock taken, the number of smolts released, the...

"86?

The Sauk season started in the spring of 1981.

Like Salmo g I have not seen much evidence that with steelhead wild brood stocks have been essential except to produce fish to harvest. In the Puyallup example it looks like the SAR for that program is around 0.12% - not much different what is being seen with the early timed (Chambers Creek)...

About a decade ago I returned to lake fishing after an absence of 30 years or so and quickly learned that consistent success would involve learning the "chironomid" game. For me I found it to be anything but boring. Learned to fish two rods with 2 flies (here in Washington) and found a...

Thanks for the heads up, thankfully being retired I should be able to avoid the worst of the slow downs. Any word on when construct will start. Secret Creek looks to be the typical Puget Sound lowland coho/cutthroat stream. Am I reading the project description correctly that the low bid is...

The Skagit steelhead river management plan allows for a variable impact depending on the forecasted run size: For forecasts less than 4,000 no directed spring season with a 4% allowable incidental impact. For forecasts between 4,001 and 6,000 a directed spring season with up to a 10% allowed...

WDFW's news release out for the opening of the Sauk/Skagit CnR steelhead fishery. Forecast was 7,019 with the season to run 2/1 to 4/15 7 days a week. Curt

Well done sir!

I thought it might have been the Lake Washington pelagic sculpin (prickly). Curt

Aah the good old days! I began steelhead fishing in 1959 and over the years since I consider at least on North Puget Sound the early/mid 1980s to be the very peak of some great steelhead fishing. Good numbers of fish and for those early converts to CnR steelhead fishing some truly amazing...

Nwbobber touched on an important point. The lack of road maintenance would likely lead to road failures which in turn could lead to increased sediment transport downstream. Most of us are aware of the Chinook and steelhead problems in the Stillaguamish basin (USFS owns roughly 1/2 of the...

The monitoring of the various steelhead fisheries by WDFW is a direct response to the federal requirements to limit the impacts on ESA listed populations or an attempt to avoid a listing for current non-listed stocks. The harsh reality is that WDFW only has two dials (harvest and hatcheries)...

Pretty much an old school moocher. Rod of choice would be an 8.5 or maybe 9-foot medium weight rod (rated for say 8 to 17# line paired with a Bantam 1000 or 1500 LC. I fish either reel in direct drive mode and for Chinook definitely prefer the 1500 LC (line counter) model.