Undamming the Elwha

Published 11:30 am Tuesday, September 20, 2011

It was a happy day last week when they released 10 chinook salmon in Lake Mills behind Glines Canyon Dam on the Elwha River.

The salmon were radio tagged and should help scientists learn what will happen when they dismantle Glines and Elwha dams, returning the river to something akin to its wild state in the largest project of its type ever in the United States. Construction of Elwha dam started in 1910.

The Seattle Times had a story on the salmon release today, and what interested me was that Dick Goin of Port Angeles was among those selected to release the salmon.

Goin is 80, an Olympic National Park volunteer, and a man who has been fly fishing the river for most of his life.

His family moved to the Elwha when he was just 6.

Several years ago, I interviewed Goin about what fishing the river was like.

He said he could still recall one of his first camping trips there with his father in 1940.

“I remember seeing these big fish in the holes,” he said. “I didn’t catch any. I’m sure now they were really big bull trout.”

Goin said that in later trips, he did catch beautiful rainbows, a few cutthroat and some very nice bull trout. “It’s reasonably common to have a trout on and a big bull will grab it,” he said. “It adds spice to things.”

The river still holds bull trout ranging up to 10 pounds, but rainbow were also the most common and most prized target.

Goin said he always fished the river with a floating line.

“For trout I would always try to stay dry,” he said. “When I started up there, I didn’t have any precise patterns. We mostly used two or three flies — a (Royal) Coachman, a Blue Upright and a gray (Adams). The very simple old-time patterns are probably more suggestive.”

It will take some time, but there will be more than just trout to tackle on the Elwha. The river once had chinook that weighed 100 pounds. And there are other salmon and summer and winter steelhead.
Goin told The Times he doesn’t know how long it will take to restore the anadromous fish.

“But I hope I can make it to see a big king salmon go by,” he said.

To look at a photo gallery on fishing the Elwha, click here.