Skykomish offering mix of chinook, steelhead
Published 1:30 am Wednesday, June 21, 2017
By Wayne Kruse
For The Herald
Skykomish River anglers have enjoyed an exceptional season since the June 1 opener, according to Andrew Moravec at Three Rivers Marine in Woodinville. The catch has been a nice mix of chinook and steelhead.
“The Sky was real good right out of the gate,” Moravec said, “and it’s still fishing well.”
He said the heavy snowpack in the Cascades is part of the reason. Runoff has been slow and steady, without any hot weather to send all the snow downhill at once. That has kept the river high enough to bring fresh fish in from the saltwater but not too dirty to fish effectively.
Since the Sky is about the only game in town, fishing pressure has been heavy. Sleds, drift boats, and even bank fishermen have been taking chinook and the word has spread. Bank anglers are working the Lewis Street water in Monroe, Borlin Park, and the cracker bar in Sultan. When the river is running above 6,000 feet per second, boaters concentrate on a handful of the deeper holding holes. Below 6,000, they work the Wallace flats, the afternoon hole, two-bit, Hershey hole, Ben Howard, the highway hole, and others.
Bank anglers drift eggs or bobber and eggs, or swing spoons. Moravec said the B.C. Steel spoons in two-fifths ounce weight are popular.
Boaters side-drift eggs, with a Slinky, two No. 4 hooks and a size 12 Cheeter.
The Reiter Ponds section of the river has been fair for steelhead, Moravec said.
Baker Lake sockeye
The first sockeye of the summer entered the Baker River trap June 15, and through Monday a total of 17 fish had been trapped. Ten had been transferred to Baker Lake.
The lake opens to sockeye July 8 and closes Sept. 7, with a four-fish daily limit.
The total number of sockeye trapped last year was 24,990. The highest count recently was 31,900 in 2015.
Coastal salmon
Marine Areas 1, 3 and 4 (Ilwaco, LaPush and Neah Bay) open Saturday to salmon fishing, and the outlook is reasonably bright. Wendy Beeghley, the state Department of Fish and Wildlife’s coastal salmon manager, said the forecast for “tule” chinook — lower Columbia River fish — is for a pretty decent run, and these are the salmon that make up the bulk of the recreational catch early in the season for the coastal ports.
One caveat, she said, is that the commercial boats, which found good numbers of chinook shortly after their opener, have had to scratch a little harder the past couple of weeks.
Beeghley said Neah Bay will put out mostly chinook at the start, and that it could be pretty good.
“More people are learning how to fish those early chinook,” she said.
Ilwaco always seems to produce decent fishing when some of the other areas don’t, she said, and she looks for a repeat this year for a mix of chinook and coho.
Trout
Here are the most recent rainbow plants in county lakes: Gissberg Pond North, 500 half-pounders and 1,430 catchables; Gissberg Pond South, 1,500 half-pounders; Silver Lake, 350 fish in the 1- to 2-pound range, and 1,500 catchables.
Wolves moving west
State and federal biologists captured an adult male gray wolf in eastern Skagit County on June 8, fitted the animal with a GPS tracking collar and released it onsite.
This is the first gray wolf captured and collared in Western Washington in modern times. While the state prefers to keep the capture site general, the word circulating through the outdoor community is that the site was near Marblemount.
The animal was captured by state and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service personnel during an investigation of wolf activity in eastern Skagit County. Under federal law, the USFWS has primary management responsibility in areas of the state — including Western Washington — where wolves are listed under the Endangered Species Act.
On May 17, the USFWS received a report from a county resident that one or more wolves had preyed on his chickens early that morning. He sent photos of two suspected wolves to a federal biologist, noting that he heard howling and observed tracks in the area during the winter. After investigating the situation, a wildlife-conflict specialist from the state concluded it was a probable depredation by one or more wolves.
On May 18, federal and state biologists arrived at the property to deploy traps and trail cameras. Three weeks later, they captured the adult male.
That animal is the strongest indication of wolves moving into Western Washington since 2015, when a female was found dead, struck by a vehicle, on I-90 near Snoqualmie Pass.
The discovery of wolves west of the Cascades is significant for state and federal management of the species. The state’s wolf recovery plan has a goal of maintaining 15 successful breeding pairs for at least three years before the species can be removed from the state’s endangered species list. At least four breeding pairs must be in Eastern Washington, four in the northern Cascades, four in the southern Cascades and northwest coast, and three anywhere in the state.
