TOPIC:

I woke up last night the sound of thunder, are the salmon running I had to wonder. Started thinking about the run of '99... Those big silver fish burning line.

I drove out the MC in the rain and sat at the coast guard station until the Lightning quit. Took a stroll out to the pier around sun rise and chucked spoons and cranks until about 9. I saw as man fish as cormorants, which was three, the fish did not appear to be anything bigger than small coho. The most discouraging thing was watching a "salmon" boat pass the pier as I was packing up my stuff. He had a dozen rods rigged up and I could see a least 4 of them were rigged with Dodgers and spin n glows, and he was still running for the horizon by the time I got to the parking lot. I mean how depressing is that, we have storms all around us so in my opinion heading off shore is risky. Add in that it's prime conditions and prime time for harbor patrol, and this guy shot out offshore like he didn't even think salmon existed.

I've been cooperating with the creel clerks all summer when I've seen but when the guy stopped me at my car this morning I told him I've been fishing 4 days straight and haven't had a bite, and that I've spent 375 grand on fishing since my last trip.

LMAO - my number gets bigger everytime they ask me too but I am still a ways from 375K. Seems to be next to no run thus far unfortunately

Counted 75 fish jumping today at the lamprey dam today in 25 minutes. Lots of Steel, a coupe of Kings and a lot of what look like Coho. I also saw a couple of big Browns trying to get up the falls. Actually encouraged by the activity!

Excellent!

Baron, I went by the weir on Friday morning and there aer quite a feww coho moving through and a couple steelhead. I only saw 1 king during the hour or so I was there. While I was there the DNR guys came and emptied the trap, there was around 15 steelhead for the week, they were trying to save 20 to justify the hatchery transport truck coming to pick them up, but didn't meet the goal. They said the've passed a few hundred coho and only a handfull of kings. I took a video and some pics, I tried posting the pics, but something isn't working right, probably a slow connection on my end. It was interesting to learn more about the weir and its opperation. I was able to meet up with the biologist last sping and listened to him talking to some political types about it. The number of ffish at the weir wass encouraging, but I also fished lower trail below the golf course pretty hard Tuesday and never saw a fish outside the pile below the weir. I also have been down to the dam at the little cal about 3 or 4 times for 20-60min each during these rains and have only seen about 3 or 4 coho go over the dam, I have yet to see a fish in Salt and have been there 3 times in the past 10 days.

The saddest thing of all that I've witnessed this fall is Mik-Lurch. I still can't believe they're shutting it down. I was there on Thursday looking for a birthday present for my dad. The only thing I can compare it to is packing up a loved one's belonging after a they've passed. This week was just a total bummer for me.

Yes other than the deals I have been getting the last few weeks the closing of McLurch is sad. Worst part is this is my first year on the big lake so I am losing out on a lot of knowledge that they had and shared. Hard to compete with the big stores I guess but still a shame.
I was a little encouraged after reading the DNR posting and the PDFs in the link that I posted in the watercooler section. It looks like they are trying to do some things different to keep the Salmon at least for the next few years. Hate that I am just getting addicted to this fishing and it seems I am on the tail end of a good thing.

Pretty sad the hatcheries still need to get summer run steelhead now that it's fall.