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Westport Bottomfishing, Winter wrap-up -LIVE- Proposed Puget Sound Seasons, and STEELHEAD!
1K views
Feb 5, 2025
This winter I’ve harvested all of these from around the PNW: Goose, squid, razor clams, smelt, chinook, steelhead, Dungeness crab, lingcod, rockfish. A few highlights on each! Want to know what's the latest on North of Falcon? We've got some proposed seasons to discuss. We talk about what's going on right now in terms of harvest opportunities and share some raw videos from recent trips
View Video Transcript
0:03
welcome to another p&w best life live stream uh we have a lot to go over today
0:09
on our agenda I want to wrap up kind of winter and and show you some of the
0:16
things we harvested this winter we you know got like eight different species
0:21
from around the Pacific Northwest of course we want to talk about north of Falcon and just you know what's the latest what's the latest there you know
0:28
we've got proposed seasons from wfw and some concerns and all kinds of stuff I want to definitely want to share that
0:35
I've got some raw footage to share from a few recent trips this past week I did two backtack uh very very long epic
0:45
trips one out to Westport and another one uh floating the gadget in sock River
0:51
and uh for for steelhead and then uh you know we want to talk about what's what's going on right now uh we're in the midst
0:58
of just one of the most incredible Blackmouth Fisheries in Marine area 10
1:04
that we've seen uh in in a few years is is it going to stay open uh what's going
1:10
on there what about Marine Area 11 uh you know we've we're knocking on the door of Springers you know we'll talk
1:17
about how many have gone over the dam what's going on there when can we expect Columbia River Springers to really turn
1:22
on and uh you know we still have uh steelhead on Southwest Washington and lots of other things coming up so you
1:29
know the that Seasons uh were announced um a lot of cool opportunities there so
1:36
just again reminder like my main reason for trying to do these live streams as opposed to just making videos is and
1:43
particularly during north of Falcon but we'll see you know uh throughout the year how this goes but uh I want to uh
1:51
get be able to take your questions get your engagement feedback especially
1:56
regarding north of Falcon as you know I've been active in all meetings and and uh connected with a number of you in
2:03
comments or Instagram DMS so you know that's uh you know your
2:10
feedback and your involvement in the process if many of you probably can't attend these meetings in person or
2:16
online a lot of times they're right in the middle of the work day so um feel free to to send me your thoughts ideas
2:22
Etc if something jumps out at you but uh yeah that that's so please if you're on
2:28
the live stream here you know feel free to drop questions in I will be happy to interrupt and address those and we'll
2:35
see how that goes I haven't figured out a good way to let everyone know ahead of time part of it but my schedule has been
2:42
pretty Dynamic so uh you know up until a few hours before I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to uh to be able to do
2:49
this this live stream so that'll hopefully get more stable and I'm thinking more like Friday Friday night
2:55
give weekenders um more of an update if I can provide relevant helpful recent
3:02
information for you all who are maybe planning to do things on Saturday or Sunday um and then we'll we'll see I'm
3:09
still planning to make a lot of videos this year still have a lot of the website has got all kinds of major stuff
3:16
in flux right now so there's a lot going on but I definitely want to keep you all up to up to date on what is happening
3:22
here so um I wanted to start though with just sharing uh some of the I just think
3:28
it's it's so cool live in such an incredibly unique part of the world and
3:34
uh you know we have the ability to to harvest so many different types of of food and uh you know be able to
3:41
sustainably harvest eat just incredible uh meals from the ocean from the uh from
3:47
the rivers from the the forest so uh it's like well I just kind of put a list together of like everything I've done so
3:54
far this uh this past winter we're in spring now first week of spring so all
4:00
right here here here's a here's a squid here's squid video from last [Music]
4:06
December this probably my favorite squid setup uh you know with this uh kind of
4:12
shorter boat rod with like a line counter reel uh it's super super
4:18
effective for targeting uh you know suspended squid even if they're five to 10 feet off the bottom like being able
4:24
to just dial it in and know exactly where you're at asj was was was really
4:30
incredible hopefully coming hopefully I'll get to do big one buddy big one
4:36
buddy yeah hopefully we'll be able to do a lot more of that uh this this next
4:43
December November you know whatever the the squid start uh rolling in again and
4:48
then uh I do this probably once a year uh winter crb you know some place in
4:54
this case it was Hood Canal we got not quite as many Dunes as we as we thought it some some CH more challenging uh
5:01
setup but we you know we were on the boat all day crabing got a bunch of Dungey some Red Rock you know you do a
5:07
crab boil throw the corn I got a a good friend for who's um he's got like some
5:13
roots in Louisiana and had like all the uh the crab boil seasoning and stuff that he brought to the table and uh that
5:20
was just an incredible incredible day so there there's two we got squid we got dungeons crab and then we went over to our uh
5:29
place the Yakama River and uh shot some duck there's there's my Franky that I
5:35
got last year and uh nice Mard I took out and then I've just I'm pretty new to
5:43
bird hunting and so this is pretty like you know this is all super exciting super new for me but I got a a nice
5:50
Canada goose in uh January uh from the same same area just
5:55
just still kind of learning uh how to do the bird hunting really well I'm going to go turkey hunting in a couple weeks
6:01
for the first time excited about that as well I'll probably be uh I'll probably
6:07
be a disaster out there but uh hopefully I can figure something out so and then
6:12
of course you know a lot of you know all about the Razer clam opportunities yeah
6:19
got my limit 15 [Music]
6:25
clams uh little tough digging day you got to watch out for some of the days
6:31
that you pick the Dig when there's a lot of Stormy activity around uh you know a
6:36
lot of folks know this but a lot of folks if you've only ever experienced easy Razer clam digging right when uh
6:42
when there's when there's some higher surf some higher winds like you know things don't always show and uh the
6:50
razor clim don't the shows don't show up as well and uh I've heard a lot of folks because we've had some Dynamic weather
6:56
right we've had some storms we've had some some some good Windows too but for some folks they ended up uh razor clam
7:04
digging on some bad windows and we're like Hey where's all the clams these were great low tides um should be PL
7:10
opportunities in the spring Springtime sometimes is is the best anyways um you know you get those morning morning low
7:16
tides so hopefully um if you haven't done that yet that'll be an opportunity to get out and do this is obviously an
7:23
opportunity that is well andone but 20 pounds of fresh mil two
7:30
limits for my wife and I excellent excellent meat harvested in the PMW
7:36
going home gonna find its way to some some batter oh my goodness smelt is uh
7:44
yeah smelt is awesome one of the tastier cruits we get around here uh and what
7:50
this next species is largely feeding on in the winter time and Springtime that
7:55
makes it taste so wonderful anyways uh some black nice 24 in keeper black mouth
8:03
over here in Marine are 11 we're getting a few of them lost a much bigger one
8:09
that was 15 got the blood pump somehow it's not even summer yet
8:14
and I've lost three like quality schnook in a row I I can't explain uh what how I'm on this bad
8:21
streak already but um I can't wait to change my luck here hopefully I get all
8:27
the all the you know losing these fish now so that uh when it comes time to
8:33
hook a few Springers I don't lose any of those that's that's uh that's what hopefully that's what I'm telling myself to console myself but uh Marine Area 11
8:42
has been interesting right there's been some good fishing certain areas um it's been hit or miss in other places and
8:48
it's been just straight slow other times uh you know especially fishing some of
8:53
the popular areas like the clay Banks um but Marin are 10 has been just just just
9:00
off the charts Mariner 10's been absolutely off the charts and and I've got this graph here of schnook the the
9:09
the cre and some of these things some of this is just like it's insane the these numbers and and really what I'm focused
9:16
in on you know the the orange here is just your your Anglers that are cred with the blue being the um schnook that
9:23
I cred this comes from ww's CRE reports but the catch per unit of effort so the
9:31
the the catch per angler uh is are insane look at this on like the
9:37
2 that's over half a uh shinuk Pan um
9:44
this is most recently a shook pad on Saturday um the six that that first
9:50
Wednesday opener was almost half a shook I mean the these numbers are uh are some
9:56
of the best schnook per unit of effort numbers we've had in the last 10 years
10:04
um just looking at all the data that we've got going back that far I know you could always talk about the good old
10:10
days and how oh it was much better you know in the 90s or you know what
10:15
whatever period you want to pick but the the season in 2024 has been incredible why is that you
10:22
know I've been asking different folks why is that I mean could it be some of the Orca feed that's finally kind of you
10:28
know making making its way back I mean a lot of these are are three-year-old fish
10:33
um the Orca programs really got going in 2020 so you know uh the and last year
10:41
wasn't this good although we didn't really get to experience the full capability of last year because we were
10:46
closed due to sublegal encounters way too early right so that's the other thing that's been incredible about this
10:51
season is we haven't had a lot of subal or even unmarked encounters you know that's been the the the the major drama
10:58
of of our salmon fishing seasons in Puget Sound the last last couple years and just hasn't shown up that way so
11:06
it's really been an incredible opportunity um if you're on any of the
11:11
social media sites I mean you're just every day you're getting your feed blown up with a nice Chrome schnook caught
11:18
from Puget sown and mostly Marine area 10 so uh you hopefully you got a chance
11:23
to get out there take part I don't think it's going to open up again next Wednesday I think before this stretch we
11:32
were almost 90% of total encounters there's not a legal catch quota um there
11:38
was an estimate from Fram that uh we were close to two weeks ago but there's
11:47
uh but the total encounter number is what's is what's going to determine the season and so I I think I think this is
11:54
it um I'd be surprised if it opened up again but you know I've been wrong many
11:59
many times now you may be wondering okay Marine Area 11 that's nice what what what went on with 10 what's going on
12:05
with 11 let me pull up that that chart here for you as you can see it just it
12:11
hasn't it hasn't been as good right we've got uh plenty of effort not quite as much as as in 10 but lots of effort
12:18
and just much lower catch per unit of effort and and some of these days are really low I mean there were some slow
12:24
days on the water out there uh but if you look at Saturday just a little bit
12:30
better little bit better I mean that's still like uh what is that maybe a shook
12:37
per seven Anglers I mean that's that's not great but uh you know may maybe
12:42
it'll it'll keep getting a little bit better into next week and certainly as we get into April I I don't know where
12:50
Marine are 11's at but I suspect it's going to stay open a little bit longer although you know they also might look
12:55
at it and go well let's shut it all them all down at the same time so we don't get the big effort shift so I I have no
13:01
idea what the Department's going to do I'd hope they keep 11 open a little bit longer given that you know we just we
13:07
haven't encountered a lot of fish in 11 they've they've been up in 10 uh quite quite thick so so that's it for for the
13:15
black mous stuff that uh that I know about obvious you know you know you can always dip down to 13 that's open year
13:21
round and we're just about to get to our CQ Blackmouth opener on April 1st uh you
13:28
know that's pretty EX exciting I'm I'm looking at the weather to decide whether I'm going up there or not uh we'll get
13:33
in we'll talk about halet too but you know April 4th the area around seeq is
13:38
gonna open for halit as well so you'll be able to Hey Stephen W what's up thanks for dropping a comment in there
13:45
um but you know I'm kind of excited about going up to seiku and just like fishing all day for uh for salmon link
13:53
Cod Rockfish and halet after April 4th um but who knows I mean that's a lot of
13:59
that's going to be dependent on weather I mean you can get a lot of fishing done you know even in heavier weather around
14:06
seeq but uh man is it fun if you get like a clear weather window and you can
14:12
go do your Rockfish fishing out you know around tatos and those areas are you
14:18
know they're they're beautiful as well so you know I don't know I if you can pick your pick your days I like to see a
14:25
good forecast marine forecast before I head out there but uh you know that's that's just me sometimes you got to go
14:31
when you got to go and and uh deal with some rougher stuff and just deal with the fact that you have some shelter uh
14:37
over there um you know especially if it's coming from the west or Southwest so uh Olson's might need a call yes yeah
14:47
are you I'm assuming you're apply implying they're uh they're they're pretty booked up already um there are
14:53
other places around there too and and uh in that area so yeah uh it's a it's it's
15:01
gonna it's definitely going to be something worth going out there to do and and you can really feel the freezer
15:06
right if you if you get out there for a couple you know 12-hour days on the water you can put a lot of fish in the
15:12
freezer uh very very quickly so I'm excited about that but that's kind of it for our Blackmouth opportunity after
15:18
after seeq uh you know you really want to pay attention to the things that are
15:24
going on in in Marine Area 13 in May sometimes those and then you got Marine area hopefully in June uh June 1 is is
15:32
usually uh some of the best fishing so we'll talk more about that as we get closer um you know that's for for most
15:41
South Sound die hards uh Marin 11 June is just it's uh that's where you want to be and of course then you get all your
15:47
ocean openers in June and all that stuff so uh we're not very far away uh ice
15:54
fishing is not in my bucket list I'm willing to do it I'm willing to do it I had someone offered to take me out uh to
16:01
do that in some Lakes over there um but uh it is not in my uh it's not in my
16:07
bucket list so uh yeah all right let me let me talk about oh let me let me show
16:14
you some footage from okay so I I just got back from Westport last week I was out there for a you know a single I live
16:22
in like P up and so I just made a two-hour run to Westport with my crew we arrived at the parking lot
16:29
and uh this is like I think this is the 18th Monday morning we arrive at the parking lot Westport it's completely
16:36
empty which is not usually a good feeling because you're like okay did I
16:42
miss something is it closed did I uh I miss read the forecast you know like
16:48
double- checking stuff but nope the forecast was was like four foot swell uh
16:53
at 12 or 13 seconds the you know Bon fishing obviously is is open so um but
17:00
yeah there just wasn't a lot of participation that day and so it the
17:05
weather was not ideal I mean it was it was it was okay it was passable but there was a lot of fog I had to run
17:12
radar the whole time running North as you see from this video about to share there's no fog it eventually lifted
17:19
especially when we got further north but there was uh there was a lot more wind waves we had North a North 8 to 12 win
17:26
that the further west you went the further out went the the more it picked up so that
17:32
was challenging and so we were riding on twoot chop all the way up there and uh
17:38
it sometimes was challenging because you wouldn't be able to the the wind so much broke up the swell you wouldn't be able
17:43
to tell when you would be on top of a swell and sometimes just drop off the backside and give us all a nice jolt so
17:49
it wasn't the most Pleasant you know it was weird it was like I was running radar uh dodging crab pots because
17:55
there's a million commercial pots out there right now running radar in the fall F and dealing with wind waves I'm like you know can we usually if you've
18:03
got wind you don't have fog and if you have fog you don't have wind so it was It was kind of an annoying trip out
18:09
there but then the wind really did kind of lay down um later a little bit later
18:14
in the morning gave us some nice nice drifts but then as it got into the early afternoon it picked up again so let me just share some footage and we'll we'll
18:21
talk about kind of what's going on drop it I like to Target those Rock piles in
18:29
like you know 60 to 120t of water especially early in the
18:39
season and we were primarily using Lancer jigs or like 8 O jig heads with like Berkeley grubs on them
18:46
so this is just one of the one of the better Lings we got in the day it can be I might have a quality
18:54
fish on here what I got oh yeah
19:01
we'll keep we'll keep
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that usually get our bigger Lings as hitchhikers
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uh and we didn't get any hitchhiker Lings this trip for for whatever reason so whatever we didn't whatever we
19:22
weren't able to pull up on uh on um you know on jigs just wasn't happening we
19:28
got a bigger Ling on Rockfish gear as well so um yeah that we had to keep some
19:34
a little bit smaller than that near the end because the wind was picking up and once you start really drifting quickly
19:40
across the rock piles and the wind waves are coming up it's like okay we got to keep some we got to keep some fish here
19:45
and uh and keep moving so I think this was here's a little uh window of like I want to say this was early afternoon
19:53
conversation about this I'm trying to create space for that
19:58
nice one that's going to come up also make sure we aren't keeping
20:11
like beautiful day look at that just epic
20:19
epic so theep water program so here's the
20:25
thing I mean the reality is you're uh you know you're G to throw back a lot of Linka that you're like oh man that would
20:31
have been keepable but uh you're trying to Pace the keeping of the link con with
20:37
how the trip is going and when you get into that like last one or two hours we had a fourman crew you get into those
20:43
last few hours you're like okay it unless we're gonna I don't want to keep all the Lings we catch now because if we
20:49
get a bigger one later I don't want to be dealing with that whole thing that Ling regret program so you kind of keep
20:55
Pace with it and so we kept a few more mediumsized Lings and then as we got into that last like hour two hour like
21:02
okay uh we got to we got to we got to keep these guys let's get back so I think we we pulled up all of our gear
21:09
around 2:30 pm and made the run back uh dodging crab pots you know and and the
21:14
bar was bar was pretty decent it was again we we ended up timing it so that we were fishing almost the entire time
21:21
during the E tide and we came back in on we left on right at the end of the flood
21:26
and we came back in on the on the top change beginning of the next flood so it end ended up being ended up being pretty
21:32
good from from the bar conditions and all that so I know that's been a decent like last week to get out there but I
21:39
think what's happening in the early part of this week and into into next week right it's a it's looking a little bit
21:45
more sketchy out there in terms of 10 foot plus C's and whatnot but I'm hoping I'm hoping that after Thursday things
21:53
kind of lay down and really I'm hoping into that April 1 opener things really lay down and there's like there's good
22:00
calm seas for uh for Westport but also especially for the April 1 opener up in
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CQ um obviously alet doesn't open till the 4th but but uh yeah uh that would be
22:13
super super nice okay um I also went on a driftboat trip with
22:21
Carrie Hoffman on the 19th and the gadget and sock which has
22:27
really been kind of a bucket thing for me to do um I'm not going to probably
22:32
make a video and post it or anything like that until really till after after uh towards the end of the season but I
22:38
did want to share a little bit of raw footage from that trip um for you all that are on here and let's
22:48
see you can kind of get a taste of it first of all Carrie cnh Guide Service um
22:54
you I've fished with a lot of guides in the last 15 years 15 years and some really really good ones but car is one
23:00
of the best uh you definitely want to get on his schedule he fishes all over
23:06
all over I mean pet Town Westport Rivers like he does it all um and uh you you
23:12
want to get on his schedule for sure if you like to go with guided on guided trips but um all right let me see here
23:20
let me see where to start this yeah I might change my mind again I just reel
23:26
up get over to the right all right look at look at the placement
23:32
look at the placement of where where you're casting super close to shore for the
23:38
steel head Dam like a couple feet off that Log
23:50
Jam fish
23:57
fish
24:06
you turn out s a snag right yeah yeah nice nice one
24:13
buddy now I don't care [Music]
24:19
again it's okay just just before I hook this fish I was like I don't care if we hook a fish I just love being out here
24:25
and there's something to that like the scenery is just epically beautiful but uh it was just kind of funny because I was a guy I don't care and then bam fish
24:32
on get off at the end of this
24:43
anyways you think Kyle's been pissing me off I'm Gonna Knock his fish off just know Alaska the whole C
24:56
thing out it's a boot Kyle it is a boot I think
25:03
it's got mold on it no it's
25:14
nice keep it low to the right yeah all right you get the idea pretty
25:21
awesome pretty awesome fight you'll see that the full footage and more foot I got so much amazing footage on this trip
25:28
uh I can't wait to put it all together for uh for you know probably a probably
25:34
a early April mid April release of of all of it but just an just an epic epic
25:40
fishing trip and and uh so cool we had a perfect day as you could see is sunny and bright and but I did like two 18
25:47
hour days back to back like did a uh 3:00 am. to 9 pm two days in a row
25:53
was pretty pretty tough on the body but uh uh some incredible incredible opportunities incredible time so all
26:00
right what what's next right so uh if you want to hook and actually you know
26:06
catch and bonk a steel head you're probably uh looking at the cets which
26:11
has still got you know decent escapement numbers and people are catching you know
26:17
a decent amount of fish so you know usually you're intercepting them at blue cek or barrier and uh you know uh or or
26:26
you're plunking on the lower or you got a guide right or or your own drift boat or or um or jet sled but uh it's steady
26:33
fishing get steady it's not red hot these these fish the the numbers of the escapement really don't Peak sometimes
26:40
until very late March or even early April so but but there's a steady amount of fish coming in so you know uh you
26:47
have an opportunity on on the cwit currently um for some catch and kill
26:52
Hatchery steel head um now let's look at
26:58
let's still get Springers real quick so you know what is it March 24th I mean this is some people are already out
27:03
there whacking a few Springers here and there uh but one of the key things with Springers right that we look for is we
27:09
look at Dam counts so let me show you this is the most recent Dam counts um
27:15
all the dam count stuff is kind of uh behind right so this this last data
27:20
point is from three days ago on March 21st uh the orange line is last year's this is just the past 10 days so we got
27:27
seven spring over bonnaville uh four days ago on the 20th
27:32
you can get an idea there and then let me show you wamit willit wamit
27:41
Falls and right these are really small numbers right you got four uh two right these are super small
27:48
numbers but it's starting to come in the run's starting to come in there's something unique going on this year that
27:55
I want to share with you all that's a little different is we've got uh some
28:00
kind of crazy things going on with our River temp so if you've been following on the USGS site the river temps you
28:08
know that we're uh this is this is this is a lot higher in the past two years I
28:14
mean we're 46 and a half degrees we were probably at
28:21
43 this time last year I I looked a couple days ago I mean it's at least three to four degrees higher this year
28:28
than it was last year right and we had that incredible stretch of sun and but one of the risks one of the challenges
28:34
is usually the Springer fishing with a forecast like what we have you know essentially matching what last year's
28:40
return was is is you're gonna have uh you're GNA have the fishing get really good at the end of March and early April
28:47
and then they're G to shut it down and then you're counting on you know followup openers those types of things
28:52
well the later you get in the season the higher the these temps go the more
28:58
challenge you have potentially of of snow melt and higher turbidity um that means you know lower
29:04
visibility making it harder to get these fish to bite uh as they won't be able to
29:09
see your presentations as well um even though the the higher temperature will make them more active and that'll be
29:16
that's a plus but I just got back from I was in lenworth over the weekend and there's a lot of snow mil a lot of
29:23
stream runoff and that and a lot of that water is green brown water and that is
29:28
coming down into the Columbia River uh I heard Oregon had some record snow melts
29:34
as well with some of this warmer weather so I could show you what the turbidity is
29:40
now and it's not bad like this is this is decent but if you watch this graph
29:46
and you see this thing start to spike uh at some point you know things are um
29:51
things are going to things are going to go the other way and so then you start to think more about an anchor program if you like the troll um um you're probably
29:58
not going to get as many on the troll if the turbidity really spikes I've wasted some time spinning herring in in h low
30:06
visibility water it's not the best fishing so something to keep an eye on we want these temps going up we want the
30:13
turbidity to stay low we want more fish over the dams personally I will probably
30:18
be fishing it in early April before the closure however uh that CQ thing if we
30:24
get like a killer uh killer marine forecast for CQ uh I don't know that I'll be able to
30:29
resist that I might just be like oh I'll catch a springer up in CQ screw those screw that uh you know spinning hering
30:36
program on the columia so I don't know I don't know what's gonna what it's gonna all end up um doing there but uh you
30:44
know we have choices that's a great thing we'll hopefully have some choices here where to go a lot we got a lot
30:49
going on still and then of course we got Hal uh halit opening up April 4th you
30:55
know hopefully you've seen you know kind of the opening opener uh info from uh
31:00
from wfw but they've made some major changes this year and a lot of this has to do with uh Advocates getting involved
31:08
you know some people say oh nothing you do makes any difference anyways why even get involved in the process well that's
31:14
not the case there's been a lot of folks working with the Department working with uh pfmc and these and these other um
31:21
agencies to get us more H fishing opportunity as we've left tend to leave
31:27
a lot of quota on the table is my understanding so you have April 4th openers for marine areas five six seven
31:34
eight nine and 10 right all opening at the same time and then you've got May
31:39
2nd in Coastal Marine areas uh but you also have an increased annual hbit limit
31:46
to six hbit it was four earlier so if you really are uh you know proficient at
31:51
halit angling and and you get out there and you have got you know you you get it done now you can keep six for the year
31:57
instead of four so that's pretty awesome uh so yeah you know the fishing in fuget
32:03
Town's usually not as good but Marine area five and six can be can be really
32:10
good outet fishing certain years so we'll have to we'll have to see we'll have to hopefully get out there and again if you get out to seeq and you
32:16
have an opportunity to like mix and match what you're doing oh there's no halit around or it's slow okay switch to
32:22
salmon trolling or go get your other white fish so just incredible opportunity there uh for me I'll
32:28
probably be out um I'll probably fish Westport on these early May dates
32:34
hopefully if we get decent weather Windows that's kind of my thing but I also like to fish really like to fish
32:40
Marine area 4 I haven't done three yet I'd like to get up to three and kind of screw around up there but uh you know
32:47
the later you go you know into some of these Seasons too you can look at doing potentially halit and salmon uh on these
32:55
those those June Ocean salmon Seasons as well so let let's talk about that here for let's talk about some north of
33:01
Falcon we've gone long enough without uh we need to talk about some of this north of Falcon stuff because they we've got
33:06
more information kind of about where things are headed we've got proposed Seasons we've got a lot of information
33:12
we also have continuing concerns let me let me pull up the um the Marine area
33:18
fishing proposal First Catch My Breath
33:23
here uh so you so all right so this is pretty cool chart um that they provided
33:29
us uh I think on Thursday this came out for proposed current season proposals
33:36
and again this is all got to go through all the different um negotiations working with co-managers but you know
33:42
there's a lot of similarities between this year's forecast and last year's forecast And so there's a lot of going
33:48
to be a lot of similarities in the season structure as well both the good parts about those seasons and the parts
33:54
that we uh we don't like as much and we'll get into what some of those concerns are here in a minute when we
33:59
get onto the freshwater topic but here you can see um so Marine area five right
34:06
you you've got schnook and coo both side by side here Mark selective right that
34:11
means uh you can only keep the fin clipped out ofos fin clipped fish non
34:18
retention of shinook into this Prime coo opportunity and then the second half of
34:23
September October look at this we got a non selective uh cooh opportunity which
34:30
uh I haven't got to take part in yet because I'm always hunting or doing something else fishing fugit town or
34:35
Coastal rivers in that time frame for shinook but uh I I I for for you die
34:41
hard coo fisherman this is this is your favorite thing to go out there and whack coo um in the non selective season so
34:50
you get that opportunity right now we have Blackmouth for 2025 still on the
34:57
table Mark selective March April we'll see we'll see that's one that that's one that could come under
35:04
some question because of the uh some of the stocks of concern that that have
35:09
some impact from from that that CQ Blackmouth fishery I'm talking Nooksack Springs uh the skyish Summers again
35:19
these aren't aren't very much impact but you know uh this is probably one of the
35:24
main Fisheries that has some impact there's also impact in summer seasons as well so we'll see we we that's still
35:32
early on in the process there's a there's a lot uh a lot yet for this to go and figure out looking at Marine area
35:40
6 you've got your typical shinook opener uh set for July coo at the same time up
35:48
until mid August and then you've got Marine area 6 kind of mirroring Marine area five when it comes to co right so
35:54
going from Mark selective to non- selective near the end that's pretty cool uh Marine area 7 uh again you have this
36:03
um this kind of like uh periodic opener right where where where you've got it's
36:09
not going to be open this entire time but it's like a few days of the week kind of opener that like what we had
36:15
last year from Green area 7 and and evaluating uh the data to determine if
36:21
they can have more openers but when it comes to coo you have a non-selective
36:26
period in September uh which should be pretty cool Co opportunity for the sand wands 81 you
36:33
have non- reten 81 and 82 are non- retention for shinook the whole time and then you've got non- selective uh coo
36:41
possibilities beginning in August when all those ocean coo come back really a lot of this is driven by the fact that
36:46
the gadget is pretty uh pretty crazy good in terms of coo forecast both on uh
36:55
natural origin and on hatry Orin fish skyish is a lot better than uh some
37:02
previous years uh it's potentially a stock of concern although the numbers are still decent I think 70,000 on the
37:09
uh on the on the natural origin side and I can't remember what the Hatchery number was but uh yeah for for to get
37:16
these kind of non-selective opportunities those Rivers those systems have to be in good shape uh moving over
37:23
to nine again you get the similar style that we had last year of uh Mark selective coo and schnook Fisheries
37:30
right opening those things up as it kind of rolls through you know I think we last year was like Thursday Friday
37:36
Saturday I would expect that to be again similar again similar opening time frames dates Etc uh and then moving to a
37:44
eventually a non-selective period in late September on coo which would be
37:49
which would be pretty cool in general there's an expanded coo opportunity this year in Puget town so that's exciting
37:57
Marin 10 we've got coo beginning again in early June uh there's been some back
38:04
and forth here where you know the concern is what here's what we here's what the wreck fishing group really
38:10
doesn't want to see happen we don't want to see us have another you know just
38:16
epic uh you know Harvest of of resi Coos in June and then be knocked down to one
38:23
fish when it comes to Ocean coo time in in in August so uh I'm not sure exactly how this is
38:29
going to shake out but right now we're proposing to have the same seasons we had uh last year for cooh and uh while
38:38
that will make a lot of folks happy I think there's a lot of folks too are looking at that going like is that really a good idea should we target
38:44
opening in June 15 um to make sure that we don't run into last year's scenario
38:50
where we couldn't keep to coo and 10 when the big ocean the the ocean coo fishing in 10 um was was in you know was
38:58
incredible last year uh absolutely incredible only being able to keep one was definitely a bummer uh compared to
39:04
you know those small regi Coos that you get in June so um we'll see how that
39:10
continues uh similar similar discussion about the season in 10 for shinook
39:17
although there's a lot of debate about when exactly should 10 open up for shinook again we don't want the Whiplash
39:24
we had last year where we opened and then closed and then opened again and it was hard to plan around um and and we
39:31
have a similar concern with 11 that's that's playing out that's there's still a lot things to figure out here where uh
39:38
you know wck fish group really we really don't want our Seasons to we don't want
39:43
to leave any fish on the table we don't want to leave um we don't want our Seasons closed and open constantly so
39:49
there's a lot of work that's going into determining the right open date that we that gets printed as well as the ability
39:56
to do uh an emergency opener if there's no sublegal around to say like okay
40:02
let's let's open this earlier to um and take advantage of of of what's there
40:07
so this is probably where most people fish 10 and 11 and and there's gonna there's a lot of stuff to figure out um
40:14
to get that right uh you know going into our salmon seasons and a lot of debate still in this area so not a lot
40:22
different in 12 north or south of aak point then 13 is is you know Wonderful
40:27
right it's it's open all all year long so you know actually 13 should be decent this year was good last year too but um
40:34
you know the Southtown Hatchery numbers I think are return numbers are are over
40:40
990,000 and you know a lot of people don't know that that fishes well all the way through August uh if you're not
40:46
burnt out on downrigger fishing by then uh 13 can be can be good good late into
40:52
even into mid-september so all right let me show you some freshwater stuff
40:57
uh here's I guess something you should uh be aware of samish river
41:05
uh you know Sams River has had some of the best return of hatry shinook uh
41:12
anywhere in P town and it's led to uh what what the Department's been
41:17
labeling as unruly Fisheries right and and these these issues uh with snagging and all kinds of
41:24
stuff so there's a few proposals here regarding that around gear rules you
41:29
know one of my counters to the department was should we get a group of people together who can give uh advice
41:37
to the department maybe a group of Bank Anglers who really know what's going on in this space to talk about what should
41:43
the what should the gear restrictions actually be to make the Fisheries less unruly I'm not even sure that's possible
41:51
but uh I feel like there's I've heard a lot of good ideas suggested over the years and usually whatever the
41:56
department comes up with fall short of folks who really know what's going on here and can suggest you know better
42:04
better ideas in this space so um I'm not sure if that'll turn into anything but
42:09
there are some suggestions here and look out for you know some of these suggestions to be if if they do if they
42:15
are successful they could play out in other Fisheries as well that are considered also problematic Minter Creek
42:21
um you know uh is is certainly on that list um
42:28
Gadget River uh a lot of excitement around the scagg river again there's some fantastic cooh forecasts fantastic
42:35
saky forecast if you're excited about saky uh you know what they're proposing
42:41
right now on the lake is also super exciting um work I've you know been able
42:47
to work more closely with uh Rob Larson this year president of um PSA Auburn and
42:54
on a lot of this stuff and something that I haven't been working the baker thing but he's been passionate about it
42:59
and working working on it getting the four fish limit uh in the river and Lake
43:04
opening on uh on H July 6 so that people can kind of look at the Trap counts and
43:11
uh determine when to go up and fish the lake I might actually be up uh up there fishing this year I got invited uh I got
43:19
a couple different invites to go up there and I'm excited to do that I I've only fished Baker Lake one time for Saka
43:25
and definitely would love to get up there there and uh hopefully I can take advantage of those those invitations
43:31
with my busy July schedule but um uh that would be super exciting so there's
43:36
a lot there's a lot going on this gadget there's a lot of positivity around what's going on this gadget um you know
43:42
coo is going to be ridiculous all season long up there as well so uh that's exciting for freshwater
43:50
folks uh let's see South Sound South Sound River Seasons you know uh pretty
43:57
similar Seasons to last year P carbon n squal Green duwamish Lake Washington not
44:03
a lot of surprises there um you know they haven't shown up you know as big concerns either on any of the calls uh
44:11
some concern around the squal but that's more like Harvest share Harvest split and uh things that we can kind of work
44:17
through so I'm not worried about the noqual um all right now now for now for
44:22
the two that typically give us most of our issues of late
44:27
uh still guish we're talking about a CO fishery potentially there also
44:33
potentially a fly only trout opportunity in the North Fork of the skill stey but
44:38
the skyish river has really been the the challenging um challenging system uh
44:45
really the snow homish River Basin I should say the challenge with this the skyish is the you know there's 15,000
44:52
Hatchery fish Su are fish expected back and uh because of the low Returns on
44:58
this no qualy we're having a hard time getting access to those fish in this in these seasons and so uh it's uh we're
45:07
asking them to take a look at modeling the season similar to last year with maybe a little bit
45:14
more opportunity and what are some Marine scenarios where maybe we cut some Marine Seasons to make room for this SN
45:20
homish um that may or may not be a good idea right when it comes to you have these you have these two things in in
45:27
conflict with each other that uh the Marine areas give you more bang for your
45:33
buck because it's mix stock fishery right there's less impact on the snow homish but when it comes to equitably
45:39
sharing opportunity you know uh most folks don't have a boat don't have the ability to go out and the skyish has
45:46
been such a wonderful you know summer fishing opportunity for so many folks
45:52
that uh it's really would be a bummer to say like oh uh all the impacts on the
45:57
snow homish they're going to go to marine fisheries so we don't have any interruptions there and only the freshwater folks are going to feel the
46:03
impact so uh this one's tough this one is is challenging for everyone to try to work through we're still early in the
46:10
process but uh I am given that this is our greatest constraint for marine fisheries and marine fisheries are
46:16
already tight trying to make them match last year I do not have high hopes that we're going to have a season but uh we
46:22
are still pushing forward to see what can be done what's possible uh where can
46:27
we squeak out some time on these on this noish River the skyish river Hatchery
46:32
schnook in that June July opportunity window mid June mid July so we'll see
46:38
we'll keep at it uh and we'll see where where it goes um and of course the
46:43
Wallace River you know they're talking about some Dynamic opening dates there on co uh Wallace River Co can be
46:51
fantastic um when the flows are right and it opens up so
46:58
that's a lot all right 45 minutes in uh I think that's all I have to talk about
47:04
um for this live stream but if you have any other questions I can hang out for a
47:09
minute maximum to see if you have any questions you want to drop in I can cover uh more stuff um you know feel
47:18
free if you're watching this uh later on feel free to um you know throw a
47:23
question in there and I'll jump in the comment section and try to address it or um address it next time uh next time we
47:30
go through this stuff so appreciate you Dan I see you appreciate that appreciate
47:35
that comment and uh yeah hopefully uh hopefully I'll see some of you out there on the water uh maybe in Marine are 11
47:42
maybe doing steel head for me next week my kids are on spring break so I might not do a whole lot but early April um
47:49
I'm excited to to either go hardcore after Columbia River Springers or or
47:54
that seek you thing I don't know which is going to be a better opportunity uh A lot's going to depend on that marine weather forecast so um
48:02
all right well uh we're going to close this down uh stay safe out there and
48:08
tight lines good luck everyone in your Harvest
48:15
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