Thoughts on N.Fk.Nehalem silvers??

[garyk]

Ok, so now the season's closed on the hatchery silvers, what happened?

There were reports of lots jumping in the bay; the river was not exceptionally low, yet it seems that relatively few ended up at the hatchery. On Oct. 15 the hatchery reported that 1050 had returned with half of them jacks.

After that it seemed to die.

I gave the river a try a few times, thinking they were just coming in late, but they never seemed to arrive.

From last year's jack counts, and good numbers of coho elsewhere, I was psyched for a good season on the clipped-fins but it seems like it was pretty much a bust.

Any thoughts?

[OneLastCast]

Yeah garyk:

A few thoughts or are they questions. This year is the first time that I have not seen the riffles come alive with the rooster tails of silvers shooting up. The first time I have walked into several holes behind the house and not seen pods of silvers moving through. I talked with a guy today who says that the Clackamas and Eagle Creek have been fantastic as well as a 6 fish bag at the Sandy. ( I don't know if that is true but he seemed to know his fish) So where are our fish.
You can say Flooding, logging, environment, road washouts etc. but these are hatchery fish. The ocean conditions looked good. Where did the fish go. The chinooks have not shown up in significant numbers so maybe the flood. But where are the Jacks.
I also talked with a buddy of mine from ODFW here in Nehalem and he was asking the same questions.
My question to everyone else. Are people still drift netting? Have we ignored the the net problem because we can't solve it? Are the Nehalem fish in some way inadvertently targeted? It is confusing. Jim Nielson at the Wheeler Marina says that the majority of silvers hooked in the bay are not clipped. Maybe they are natives going up the South Fork but where are the North Fork Fish.
You are right Garyk in that the river level has been excellent for fish passage and fishing. Also with all the intermittent downpours we've experienced we never lost the color of the river. I am confused, what is the answer.

The only silvers I hooked was before the river rose. After that the holes seem empty.

OneLastCast

[fish_on]

On the ODFW site it said that eagle creek was extended to 11/30 for silvers. No fish but the season has been extended. It did not mention the sandy.

[garyk]

OLC -- A guy who lives in Hamlett (sp?), said that first rain of Oct. brought wild fish into the upper reaches of the N.Fk.Nehalem, so that is good, as well as that so many wild fish were in the bay and apparently went up the south fork. And you raise good questions about nets; it seems like that population of hatchery fish ran into something that decimated them. Something that the other coho pops. of other rivers' coho both hatchery and wild, avoided.

At least the 50% hatchery coho jack count should bode well for next year, (unless the higher percnetage of jacks is entirely due to them slipping through nets - thus overstating their abundance relative to the overall population).

[baitslinger]

I think something may have changed at the hatchery also. A lot of the smolts may have been lost in the floods, and I think they may have been forced to do less stocking of the coho's to meet wild fish standards? The guy at the hatchery told me that they release about 200,000 coho, with a 100,000 each of two different stocks. But I think if you were able to get the data on the actual numbers stocked say 2-3 years ago, it wasn't that many due to the reasons cited above.I wonder about the future? Ask Jim Erickson, Jim knows everyting, and even if he doesn't he'll be glad to give you his thoughts!!! I would like to know more also since this has always been my favorite silver spot. On a bright side, at least most other hatchery coho runs have been awesome. Hope Jim or someone locally can give morer answers.

[cureless]

A few weeks ago we fished the bay caught five nice big silvers all native. We wondered at that time where the fin clip fish were?

Do they ever turn loose hatchery fish without clipping them to ensure their return?? Just a question if anyone has an answer