25 year average for total run size is 278k. How are we looking in regards to that?

 

Poorly. Might hit half that.

 

125% of last years run and 162% of the 10 year and climbing again see what happened around the 25th. Thinking aloping the lines of 222k return, which would be another step forward from last three years

 

How are you feeling about B runs now? Just wondering after 2 days of counts below 1000

 

Late report for tuesday and wednsday (12th and 13th) at the Mouth of the Cowlitz:

fished 2 rods, anchored all day with wobblers on tuesday. only saw one chinook netted, heard of 2 others. Mostly trollers with ~5-6 in the hoglines. nothing for us, but a beautiful day and 'calmish' water.

wednsday we trolled the mouth of the Cowlitz with everyone else a few uphill and downhill passes (spinners with 360s). only saw one fish boated. left the bumper boats to anchor lower and fished the big wind and big waves with wobblers. one great takedown that came off as we lifted the rod. nothing else.

grass was bad both days - especially anchored. keep those lines clean!

seems very slow - hearing about a few but not seeing much. still a little earlier in the season for us to 'usually' see lots of action...

 

It's ya alls last day for summer steelhead. I'm 13 hours ahead of you guys for time so I'm going to be watching. I want to see at least 1 picture from the last day. If I was there you know where I'd be and it wouldn't be at the keyboard crying over 10 year average's it'd be lines in the water at daybreak 😜
I was kind of disappointed I had to dig 5 pages deep to find this thread knowing hot fantastic it would have been to fish a August, which hasn't happened in years.

 

It's ya alls last day for summer steelhead. I'm 13 hours ahead of you guys for time so I'm going to be watching. I want to see at least 1 picture from the last day. If I was there you know where I'd be and it wouldn't be at the keyboard crying over 10 year average's it'd be lines in the water at daybreak 😜
I was kind of disappointed I had to dig 5 pages deep to find this thread knowing hot fantastic it would have been to fish a August, which hasn't happened in years.

I really don't think there's hardly anyone targeting steelhead at this point - we're right in the heart of fall salmon.

Hopefully someone proves me wrong and posts a picture for us!

 

The water temp at Bonneville has been between 72.5 and 73.6 for the last week. Temps above the Bonneville Pool are even higher. Flows are very low, despite good winter snowpack, and air temps aren't cooling down at night like they did in the past. The dam counts have dropped hard in the last few weeks. If you think this represents good steelhead fishing, we're going to disagree. I'm scratching my head as to why it's even open on the CR. The wild steelhead, which is 2/3 of them in the modern era, likely don't survive being caught above 70 degrees. I won't fish for steelhead above 65 degrees, full stop. I don't want to willingly and knowingly kill a native. I do think there will be an improved run this year based on early returns, but the future is not the past. The run, at least from TDA upriver, arrives later than in the past. I used to be an early fisherman on the Deschutes road section - late July was game on! I'd beat the crowds and hook really hot early fish! That is a memory now. The fish don't pass TDA in numbers until after Labor Day now. It's even later this year than the last 2 at TDA fwiw. For me, as a Deschutes fisherman, summer steelheading is now a Fall sport. This is climate change. It's not going away. Disagree? Try arguing with the dam counts and temperature data... It's there for anyone who's willing to see it.

https://waterdata.usgs.gov/monitoring-location/USGS-453845121562000/#dataTypeId=continuous-00010-0&period=P30D&showMedian=true

Daily Adult Dam Counts

The Fish Passage Center (FPC) provides current and historic data on salmon and steelhead passage in the main stem Snake and Columbia river basins. Data from the Smolt Monitoring Program (SMP) is intended to provide the information basis for federal, state and tribal recommendations for fish...

www.fpc.org

 

The water temp at Bonneville has been between 72.5 and 73.6 for the last week. Temps above the Bonneville Pool are even higher. Flows are very low, despite good winter snowpack,

The Cascade snowpack was decent but the Upper Columbia Basin in Canada was below normal, and by early summer far below normal after an early melt-off. The result is the conditions you cite.

 

The B run seem to be not holding up their end