The Fishing Corner
By Larry Dublanko
Memorial Day Weekend for Grays Harbor anglers means more fishing opportunities. Most of our local lakes have received a plant enhancement and have fish to catch. The big news; however, in the opening of streams, rivers and beaver ponds to fishing.
The actual date is next Saturday which is May 25th. This opener has fluctuated somewhat over the years in terms of the date. For years, it was the Saturday of the Memorial Day Weekend. Next, it was moved to the Saturday following Memorial Day. Then the date was moved to the first Saturday of June. It remained as such for quite some time; and more recently, it has come full circle and now again is the Saturday of the Memorial Day Weekend. With respect to our rivers, anglers will be pursuing summer steelhead. These fish are already in our hosting rivers and should provide some great sport fishing.
The key will be to fish the rivers which were planted with steelhead smolt. This plant occurred in 2017 and are the fish returning for the 2019 summer season. In Grays Harbor the two rivers that received a plant were the Humptulips and the Wynoochee River. The Humptulips was stocked with 32,000 steelhead smolt and the Wynoochee River obtained 64,000 steelhead smolt. The Calawah River in the North Washington Coast Region was planted with 33,000 smolt. These numbers are extremely low when compared to the plants in the Cowlitz River and Lewis River Basin. The upper Columbia River Basin plant numbers are off the charts as well.
Now, these numbers do not reflect the true return of steelhead. There is a mortality rate when it comes to migrating steelhead. These fish need to survive the journey in the river out to sea. While in the ocean, they will need to survive the predators of mother nature. One of the biggest concerns are the human pirates at sea. When these fish return to the river where they originated, the survival rate is between one and three percent. If you do the math this means the Humptulips River should have between 320 and 960 fish returning. The Wynoochee should see between 640 and 1,920 returning steelhead.
The actual punch card recorded numbers for the Humptulips River amounted to 310 steelhead. The Wynoochee River actual recorded steelhead catches for the same period were 1,212 steelhead. These numbers hit about the middle of the estimated return ratio. This means some fish have gotten by the anglers and should have escaped to spawn. Even though these were hatchery steelhead, their offspring will be categorized as wild fish. This is the case because they will be unmarked by hatchery processors.
All this being said, astute anglers will be preparing for this weekend. Smart fishers will not leave this to chance and will be scouting their river of choice. This could mean a dry run in a drift boat. It could mean spending time in a perceived holding location watching for steelhead. Any way you do it, the benefits far out weigh no preparation. It takes a little work to catch a steelhead.
