Born to be Wild
11-12-2003, 04:34 AM
Cowlitz was being blown out by the Toutle yesterday afternoon as we arived there.
Forget the lower Cow as it will probably be blown out for approx. a week if not the rest of the season.
You can fish above the Toutle in a boat or limited bank fishing like at the mouth of the Olequa (spelling?)
The Cowlitz has been a big major dissapointment this season for lates. I don't believe the numbers are there and it saw less than 4,000 fish last week and only 4,500 each of the two weeks prior and if I remember right 2,500 the week before and 1,200 before that and a measly 300 when they first started coming.
That's only about 17,000 coho!
Pretty dismal I would think.
I'm not sure because I never fished the Cow much before last year and I was too busy catching to woory about numbers. :grin:
But I would think closer to 50,000 coho for the season would be the norm and around 10,000 a week during the peak.
It's not over yet but as far as I'm concerned it is.
Kalama get's a good shot of fish yesterday with the rain and the river probably raised a foot or so which we really desperately needed.
There's the place to go for late strain coho and you have a good chance of bagging an early run winter which I have seen and heard of quite a few caught already this year going back to the beginning of November.
Tidewater all the way up the Kalama for the lates that are scattered all throughout the river and will bite better now that the low clear senario is momentarily gone.
Coho have been scattered througout the system now for a week or so but have been tough to get to bite with the water conditiond as of late.
Some of the fish were turning/turned and there was some blatant snagging going on both in upper tidewater and the river itself.
I kicked some gigger's out of Art's hole (just below the lower Prichard's store) Saturday and had a talk with a very nice 10 year old boy that was ripping when I got there and come to find out he usually fishes the legit method but all the Big kids (adults) were gigging/snagging and, well...
He was a very well manored kid and he switched back to the right way of fishing and I had a very "nice" talk with him about ethic's and told him he will catch plenty of fish the right way and he will be proud of his catch that way.
Anyway, it's a long story my experiences with the snagger's on Saturday but now some of them seem to leave as I arrive. :wink:
Elocoman suffered an inch of rain without any damage :shrug: and apparently the river didn't rise more than an inch or two and only gained leaves instead of fish.
Don't waste your time driving there.
It will probably get it's last big shot of "late's" this weekend or early next week with the wet stuff.
The Kalama is the place to go for chrome silvers that don't suffer "lock jaw" disease and eggs, spinners and plugs are the way to go there.
Leave the corkie's at home!
Dan
(Formerly DopeyBayDan)
[ 11-12-2003, 01:08 PM: Message edited by: skein ]
Forget the lower Cow as it will probably be blown out for approx. a week if not the rest of the season.
You can fish above the Toutle in a boat or limited bank fishing like at the mouth of the Olequa (spelling?)
The Cowlitz has been a big major dissapointment this season for lates. I don't believe the numbers are there and it saw less than 4,000 fish last week and only 4,500 each of the two weeks prior and if I remember right 2,500 the week before and 1,200 before that and a measly 300 when they first started coming.
That's only about 17,000 coho!
Pretty dismal I would think.
I'm not sure because I never fished the Cow much before last year and I was too busy catching to woory about numbers. :grin:
But I would think closer to 50,000 coho for the season would be the norm and around 10,000 a week during the peak.
It's not over yet but as far as I'm concerned it is.
Kalama get's a good shot of fish yesterday with the rain and the river probably raised a foot or so which we really desperately needed.
There's the place to go for late strain coho and you have a good chance of bagging an early run winter which I have seen and heard of quite a few caught already this year going back to the beginning of November.
Tidewater all the way up the Kalama for the lates that are scattered all throughout the river and will bite better now that the low clear senario is momentarily gone.
Coho have been scattered througout the system now for a week or so but have been tough to get to bite with the water conditiond as of late.
Some of the fish were turning/turned and there was some blatant snagging going on both in upper tidewater and the river itself.
I kicked some gigger's out of Art's hole (just below the lower Prichard's store) Saturday and had a talk with a very nice 10 year old boy that was ripping when I got there and come to find out he usually fishes the legit method but all the Big kids (adults) were gigging/snagging and, well...
He was a very well manored kid and he switched back to the right way of fishing and I had a very "nice" talk with him about ethic's and told him he will catch plenty of fish the right way and he will be proud of his catch that way.
Anyway, it's a long story my experiences with the snagger's on Saturday but now some of them seem to leave as I arrive. :wink:
Elocoman suffered an inch of rain without any damage :shrug: and apparently the river didn't rise more than an inch or two and only gained leaves instead of fish.
Don't waste your time driving there.
It will probably get it's last big shot of "late's" this weekend or early next week with the wet stuff.
The Kalama is the place to go for chrome silvers that don't suffer "lock jaw" disease and eggs, spinners and plugs are the way to go there.
Leave the corkie's at home!
Dan
(Formerly DopeyBayDan)
[ 11-12-2003, 01:08 PM: Message edited by: skein ]