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Gorgeous trout!! Yes, western Washington rivers can produce some amazing trout that when given access to an egg feast provided by big escapements of pinks and/or chums they can literally "blow up"! Both the rainbows and bulls can take advantage of those egg/flesh feast provided by large salmon...

I have had more than my share of encounters with wildlife enforcement since retiring in 2005. My goal at the time of retirement my goal was to spend 100 to 150 days a year in the field, either hunting upland birds and waterfowl with my labs (about a 1/3 of my time in the field) various...

While his "enthusiasm' could be questioned I would say good for the officer. To my knowledge the Snoqualmie has never been open for chums. The harsh reality is that we as anglers are losing more and more opportunities rising form concerns impacts from anglers intentionally targeting closed...

Without a doubt both the sea-run cutthroat and summer run steelhead are two of most challenging of our anadromous fish to monitoring their population status. The bull trout would be the next on that list. In the Puget Sound basin historically, it has been estimated that approximately 2% of its...

skyriver - When I checked an hour ago the data for the Snohomish/Skykomish steelhead showed up. Hopefully it is working for you now. Regarding Puget Sound coho - the management of the various populations is interesting of 14 or 15 "populations" only the Skagit, Stillaguamish, Snohomish, Hood...

Congrats on the retirement! I have fished streams solo for much of my life at times into some pretty remote country. For much of that time phones were not an option. I started carrying and using a folding wading staff in my late 40s and that would be one of my must haves. I would also carry...

Brian - Yes! Thank you For some reason this inept computer user I also have problems posting links with "fortress" in the address. Curt

Wild escapement. I can't get a link to work but if you search WDFW SCORE you can reach it. Once there go to the species drop box, then populations status, then the species data, select steelhead data, then select the population. For most populations you will get a time series graph and a...

Good catch - I meant to say the non-Skagit would not make it pass federal review....

I could easily find recent steelhead escapement numbers for the following eastern Puget Sound basins: Nooksack, Samish, Skagit, Stillaguamish, Snohomish, Cedar, Green, Puyallup, and Nisqually. Depending on the basin the latest numbers were either through 2023 or 2025 (often it takes a year or...

Actually, there are annual steelhead spawning surveys on all of those streams (can find that data on WDFW's SCoRE summaries), much of those surveys is done by WDFW staff. Most time series go back to the 1980s. The real hurdle to advance the potential steelhead (CnR?) fisheries on any of those...

Charles - During the NOF process I asked WDFW staff for the angler effort for the Skagit freshwater recreational spring Chinook fisheries. I followed up post NOF with an email. As of today, I have not received any information. Will report if I get any of that information In a 2025 report...

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...