Don’t say it too loudly, and you might want to knock on wood and throw a little salt over your shoulder, but maybe – just maybe – we have a decent winter steelhead season under way for a change.
Keeping in mind that optimism almost always runs rampant early in the season, reports from around Western Washington seem to indicate a few more fish than we’ve seen the past few years, and fish a little larger and healthier as well.
Case in point is the North Fork Stillaguamish, which changed from flies-only to all-tackle regulations at midnight Dec. 1. The “midnight circus” at Fortson has produced maybe 20 or 25 fish the past several years, the vast majority of which have been leftover summer-runs. Two weeks ago, according to Mike Chamberlain at Ted’s Sport Center in Lynnwood (425-743-9505), the lantern brigade banked twice that number, and a healthy half were bright winter fish.
In the first 10 days of December, guide and Marysville resident Tom Nelson (tom@fishskagit.com) hit fresh winter-runs in the Skagit, Skykomish and Cowlitz, and says, “There are indeed more steelies around now than at the ‘peak’ of last year’s season, and it’s still early.”
On the Cowlitz last Friday, Nelson had a boatload of beef and a minor war on his hands as ex-San Francisco 49er lineman Kevin Gogan and ex-Denver Bronco tackle Kirk Scrafford fought it out for steelhead supremacy.
“Scrafford landed two of the three he hooked, and Gogan was two for two,” Nelson says. “All told we hooked nine, landed six and had the boat on the trailer at 11:15 a.m., headed for home.”
Jim Strege at Triangle Beverage in Snohomish (360-568-4276) said winter steelheading in the Snohomish and Skykomish has been pretty good recently.
“We’re weighing fish every day, from both rivers,” he says, “and we had nine in on Sunday – the best single weigh-in day we’ve seen since 1995 or ‘96.”
That was a season, he says, that saw 500 fish registered on his winter steelhead ladder, compared with a total of 45 fish for all of last winter. He already has 50 fish on the board, he says.
“We’re not seeing many of the larger three-salt fish,” he says, “but the two-salts are fat and healthy, and weighing 6 to 9 pounds. That’s a big improvement over the 4- and 5-pound dinkies we’ve weighed the past few winter seasons.”
Guide and Arlington resident Sam Ingram (S&S Guide Service, 360-435-9311) says the first really fishable batch of winter fish hit the Skykomish last Thursday, and provided excellent fishing on the lower river through the weekend.
“We hit another good bunch this week, on Tuesday,” he said. “By this weekend many of those fish should be up in the Reiter/High Bridge area and that would be my choice for an outstanding opportunity.”
Darrell Kron at Hook, Line &Sinker (360-651-2204) in Smokey Point says the Stilly has been spotty since the midnight opener, but that some anglers have been doing very well. Summer-runs are making up the bulk of the catch, he says, including some late fish that are in excellent shape. Eggs would be his bait of choice right now.
“Definitely more fish around than last year at this time,” says Chamberlain (above). “The Peninsula rivers are producing very well, and the Cowlitz has been hot. About the only slow area we’ve been hearing about have been the Whidbey beaches. There hasn’t been a whole lot going on there yet, for some reason.”
The Cowlitz is the best bet, Chamberlain says, particularly for larger fish. He reports a good scattering of winters in the 15- or 16-pound range, while locally a few 12- and 13-pounders have been about tops.
Dick Carpenter at Master Marine in Mount Vernon says “Yes, actually, the guys did pretty well all last week up in the Rockport-Concrete area, and we’re also seeing fish from below Mount Vernon. The moral of the story is that we have bright winter steelhead spread pretty much throughout the river now, and it’s in surprisingly good shape, all things considered.”
Carpenter said chums are still spicing the Skagit action, although probably not in the best of shape by now.
Waterfowl: Biologist Russ Coniff and Skagit Wildlife Area manager John Garrett flew a waterfowl count on Friday, finding a rather skewed population of ducks: practically no birds (except snow geese) on Port Susan, only about 25,000, mostly mallards, on Skagit Bay, and the bulk of the wintering flock – 200,000 mallards, pintail and widgeon – on Samish and Padilla bays.
“Lots of corn up that (Samish) way are holding ducks in the area, while most of the barley on our own Samish and Island units is pretty much gone,” Garrett says.
“It’s been so mild that the ducks aren’t burning calories and having to scrounge for food,” he says. “We need some cold weather to push them out and around.”
Outdoor shows: O’Loughlin Trade Shows, the Portland-based firm which has put on the Puyallup Sportsmen’s Show for years and which recently bought out the Seattle International Sportsmen’s Exposition, has now firmed up dates for Puyallup and its own, new, Seattle show.
Puyallup will run Jan. 23-27 at the Western Washington Fairgrounds, while the new event is scheduled for March 14-17 at the Stadium Exhibition Center. The Seattle event will be officially called the Seattle Sports, Boat, Trailer and Travel Show, indicating a departure from its mostly fishing/hunting oriented predecessor, and the Puyallup show.
Caviar, anyone? Courtesy of Dean Stepanek, via Jim Brauch, both members of the Everett Steelhead and Salmon Club, comes a recipe for salmon egg caviar:
Mix 3 tablespoons of vinegar in 2 liters of room-temperature water. Put 2 pounds of fresh salmon eggs, in the skein, in the solution and let stand for 30 minutes. Pour off the vinegar solution and start washing the caviar with warm tap water, changing the water often and swirling the eggs, gently separating the eggs from the skein. Place the eggs, now an off-white color, into a jar and add 2 tablespoons non-iodized salt on top of the eggs, at room temperature, and let stand for 5 to 6 hours. The salt will penetrate the eggs, turning them a bright orange color. Rinse with cold water, let drain, cover and refrigerate. Eat and enjoy.
Clams: Two more razor clam openings this week: Friday on Long Beach, Twin Harbors, Copalis, and Mocrocks; on Saturday, add Kalaloch. Low tide Friday is a minus 0.7 at 6:13 p.m.; and on Saturday, minus 0.7 at 6:56 p.m.
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