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Harvest Recreation in the PNW Week of October 22, 2022: Fishing, Hunting, Shellfish and mushrooms
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Feb 5, 2025
First of what will hopefully be a weekly series on harvest recreation in the PNW. We start by covering what's new in terms of WDFW emergency rule changes, and news we all need to be aware of. We show our own trip highlights from the previous week, which this week was my first ever duck hunting trip! The video finishes by covering the hatchery escapement data on several rivers in chart format and how you can use PNWBestLife.com to help your trip planning to these rivers and of course covering what I think are the big harvest recreation opportunities of the week ahead. Let us know what you liked, what we can do to improve and your own ideas for harvest recreation opportunities this week. Sub to the channel for more content like this coming at you more consistently going forward.
View Video Transcript
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foreign
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best life series Kyle here from PW best
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life and today I'm going to show you uh
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what's new in the past week with wdfw
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rule changes local stories we're going
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to talk we're gonna show trip highlights
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recent duck hunting trip first time duck
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hunter here so that should be fun we're
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going to look at the data and some tools
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on pnwbestlife.com and of course we're
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going to talk about the upcoming week
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weekend and Recreation opportunities
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let's get right to it
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foreign
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so let's look at a couple of the new
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wdfw rule changes announced in the last
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week we've got the uh reopening of the
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Dungeness and gray wolf rivers to
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fishing as well as uh www also announced
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seven days of coastal razor clam digs
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beginning October 24th Let's uh let's
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dig into that one in particular
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we're looking at this razor clam dig
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announcement and as you can see uh gets
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going October 24th Monday with a zero
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low tide Long Beach twin Arbors kapalis
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and I really like the way this evolves
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through uh through the next week you got
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minus one minus 1.1 minus one uh you
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know the the minus one foot or less low
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tide can often provide just uh very very
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quick limits and easy limits especially
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if you're a beginner you want to Target
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those Tides definitely you want to bring
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a headlamp uh you know getting dark
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closer to six something you can
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typically start digging two hours in
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advance sometimes earlier with these
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really low low tides
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all right we've got to talk about a
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story that Andy wagamot from North
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Northwest Sportsman's bag released uh in
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the past week definitely something you
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should you should be aware of yeah if
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you care about Harvest Recreation
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because uh there are groups out there uh
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who are meeting with a convention on
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Vashon Island a two-day convention
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called the Washington fish and wildlife
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management reform convention and uh
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basically this is all about how to
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remove wdfw from being providing
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opportunities uh for consumption while
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uh while preserving conservation to
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basically flip that around and try to
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remove essentially all consumption
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opportunities for fishing hunting
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Etc and really move to
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um only only considering conservation uh
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there's some of your favorite groups out
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there uh like wild fish uh you know the
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uh Wildfish unlimited folks and others
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like that that are just you know they've
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just they've been they've done a lot to
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damage uh hatch reproduction in the
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state they're lots of damage our
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opportunity to to Target Hatchery fish
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and uh and keep uh the fish that we
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catch and have a nice meal at home and
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fish in the freezer so
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um you know this is this is the main
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this is a big problem Andy's kind of got
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keyed in on this and uh since he keyed
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in on it they've deleted the uh they
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deleted the uh information on their
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website about what was going on that's
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what the Second Story should just
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definitely check it out Northwest
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Sportsman's bag uh check out this this
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story that um that Andy put together and
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essentially
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um you know this last line here says it
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all WWE and the commission may have
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driven you absolutely just say crazy but
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some of their moves over the years and
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decades those ain't nothing compared to
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what could be coming if this reform
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effort succeeds time to get involved
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just something you should definitely
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definitely be aware of a lot of money
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behind this
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foreign
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that first shot we were able to get a
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couple widgets they are right at legal
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shooting light
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I got mine but he dope
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I think I saw feathers drop on the one
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there
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you mean what's that did your Bird Land
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the one on your side did it land in the
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water yeah yeah then it took off as soon
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as you took a shot and I was shooting it
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as it was trying to leave but I saw
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feathers dropping on the last shot
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behind it right right but he kept
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Trucking so
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I probably just
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yeah I probably was behind her in my
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shot
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I mean overall this was just an awesome
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first trip you know having a couple
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ducks to shoot at and just learning uh
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through experiencing you know just how
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it all works and the decoys and the
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calls and uh just the different Behavior
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dynamics of the Ducks and identifying
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ducks and it was a great time really
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grateful for the opportunity to go with
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my uh buddy Connor and show me kind of
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what's going on and definitely
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um here he is with um here he is with a
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couple nice Drakes that he got just
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beautiful
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I just want to introduce you to a
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feature if you're not aware of it on the
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pnw best
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life.com blog which you can you've got
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these the salmon fishing articles by
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river and in each one of these articles
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is a graph like this that updates uh
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every week as the escapement numbers are
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released by wdfw but the various
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hatcheries around the state and uh it
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has both charts that show you uh the
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current run for in this case this is
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fall Chinook on the Green River this is
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the historical run timing of Hatchery
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Chinook on the Green River and here we
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are looking at Coho and run timing for
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Co so as we look through these graphs I
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just want to highlight some of the more
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interesting ones that kind of tell the
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story of what's going on in the state
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with returning Hatchery fish and maybe
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where some of the Harvest opportunities
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might be you definitely want to be the
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earlier the mid part of the Run
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um get your best opportunity to block
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Hatchery salmon of some kind or another
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so let's uh let's go through these
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Rivers all right starting with the green
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you can see there's a nice Bush of Coho
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that came through in the last week and
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it was pretty slim before that but these
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coal are coming in and if you look at
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the Historical run timing you could see
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uh this is right about the time when
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they make a nice good push of similar
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size
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all right moving to the Skagit you can
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see they got a nice bump in the last
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couple weeks as well independent of the
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water levels these fish are still moving
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up definitely want to pay attention to
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the regulations and e-rags before
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fishing the Skagit and if you look at
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historical run timing
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um you know you can see there's been
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bigger pushes of fish earlier but I
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think a lot of those fish are going to
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move in as the water level rise with all
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this recent rain that's coming in take a
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look at the hump tulips and this is just
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kind of uh representative of what's
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going on the coast just fish are not
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moving up they need water these rains
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are going to help big time you tell from
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the historical run timing that uh you
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know there's just nothing like this
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where a run just doesn't have a big push
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yet into at this point in October so
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let's see what we're going to get after
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a week of of good rains moving over to
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the Cowlitz another opportunity although
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fall Chinook has come in uh far I think
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beneath typical run size you can see
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here from the historical run timing by
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the time we're in October we've got
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usually over a thousand fish coming in a
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week and we're just not there yet uh so
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tough on the fall Chinook front and the
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Cowlitz however Coho is a different
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story this is the weekly return weekly
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updated return of coal and it's just
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climbing and climbing and climbing and
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compared to previous rods I think we're
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already uh in really good company here
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with some of the better runs in the last
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uh last few years so could be a great
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great opportunity there
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all right let's talk recreational
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opportunity of the week ahead so uh
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probably my number one uh thing here for
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me at least is going to be looking at
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the big game hunting opportunities
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specifically deer modern rifle season
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you know I've got an all-season or a
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multi-season tag and definitely gonna
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take advantage and here's something I'm
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looking at you know you've got all this
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rain coming in all this these showers
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rain
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um inclement weather and then on top of
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that we've got the moon phase kind of
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going to a new moon here in the coming
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weeks and you know a lot of times when
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you have uh you know the these these
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overcast or rainy rainy skies and you
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have no moon uh Moonlight you know these
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animals they tend to be more active
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during daylight hours early morning late
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evening and you know if you were out
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opening weekend didn't get it done and
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you got a tag I think this week is the
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time to go back to the woods uh find
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that animal I'm looking for a black tail
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to fill my tag and hunting uh you know
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around out Rainier and yeah looking
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looking for that for sure you know then
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of course you know I love these razor
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clam digs like I was talking earlier I
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love these razor clam digs on top of
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this week I really like the idea of uh
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going out for razor clams and mushroom
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forging in the same trip like come on
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that's pretty ridiculous did that last
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year I found this big cauliflower flour
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mushroom and chanterelles and uh you
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know oh just fantastic trip can't wait
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to repeat that and uh also this week I
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know one thing I'll be doing is I'll be
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going over to Central Washington and
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probably trying to fish the Yakima
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that's open uh near near Prosser we'll
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be staying there for for a night and uh
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definitely be out uh first time ever
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fishing the Yakima I can't wait to check
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that out kind of some desert salmon
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fishing opportunity uh we'll probably be
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in next week's highlights for sure
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unless things go really really poorly uh
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so I also got to look at you know Co
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fishing around Puget Sound you know if
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you've got that itch to to hit salmon
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still and uh you know there's there's
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still Rivers putting out coal in the
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Puget town and man these rains these
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rains are going to set in these Coho on
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the coast uh up those rivers and I don't
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know exactly when wdfw is going to
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reopen things they'll probably uh wait
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let a lot of fish go in the spawning
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grounds were into the Hatchery before uh
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before giving us all a green light but I
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would bet by maybe maybe November 1st
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maybe earlier uh we'll see those Rivers
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open up again and uh that is going to be
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just incredible incredible uh Coho
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fishing when that happens and of course
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I also got to give a shout out to some
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waterfowl hunting some doing doing the
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bird thing you know it's not as good as
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obviously opening day is fantastic for
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that but um there's still there's still
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birds moving around and find a pond find
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some public land or if you've got access
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to private land and get something going
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there with birds Ducks
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um you know we saw a lot of geese moving
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where we were too
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um you know look for the fields for for
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the geese but that's an opportunity for
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sure that uh is is worth your attention
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if you have another idea of uh maybe a
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local opportunity you'd like to share
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drop it in the comments engage with us
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give us any ideas to improve uh the the
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show going forward and kind of what I'm
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trying to do here you kind of get the
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idea so uh love to get your feedback and
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ideas around Harvest Recreation uh going
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forward if you haven't already please
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give us a like subscribe to the channel
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I'm gonna try to get this video series
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out every uh Friday at five o'clock
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local time and uh you know turn
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notifications on so you get notified
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when it drops and trying to try to
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really help uh Local pnw Harvest
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Recreation and hopefully help you out in
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your heart Harvest Recreation goals
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