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I just heard on the salmon hotline that the season on the South Fork will close on Wednesday 7/9. I fished that river hard all last week and never touched a fish. After speaking with several people up and down that river all week, nobody else was catching anything either. There were just rumors of a FEW fish being caught. I'm sure a handful of fish were caught, but Fish & Game is for sure not being honest about the number of fish being harvested. All of the Fish & Game guys I spoke to had only seen a handful of fish that had been harvested so far the entire season.
I used to love fishing for salmon on that river, but I think I'm done with it. This kind of thing is now happening every year. I would estimate that less than 100 fish were caught, let alone harvested, on that river this season, but Fish & Game claims that the quota will be reached by Wednesday. I was there and talking with people up and down the river all day on the days that F&G claims that over 100 fish were being harvested. 100% NO WAY! The big run hasn't even hit yet. So disappointed.
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[quote I would estimate that less than 100 fish were caught, let alone harvested, on that river this season][/quote]
Based on what?????
Look at it this way. IF the catch numbers are low then the number of fish returning is WAY lower than predicted and any additional harvest is only going to hurt the fishery. A good chunk of the run shoulda hit the river by now. Ive fished it for years (not this year) and its always a crap shoot unless its a big run.
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Based on being up there essentially the entire time the "run" was coming through the river and very, very few people were catching anything. If there really are super low numbers of fish this year, then I get it. Like you said, it's best for the fishery. It's just a little hard to believe it's that bad. Maybe it is.
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I think their forecasts in the spring are always a bit optimistic. Seems like most years they "expect" good runs and then they seem to be quite a bit shy of what they predicted. It wouldn't surprise me at all if there just isn't much of a run
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The early season predictions are pretty much crystal ball type predictions. BUT as the fish numbers over the dams increase the confidence intervals in the predictions tighen up
Based on pitt tags, theres been a fair number of adult hatchery fish ( well over 4000) that crossed lower granite dam. So it was a decent run at least to that point.
What happened to them after that I cant tell you, but they dont seem to be showing up in the SF. There was a pretty good number of the fish that had crossed over LG dam that prob went thru Riggans at the tail end of that fishery so maybe they hammered them the last week of that season. Maybe there was a lot of mortality due to high sediment levels during the high flows than expected.
Once they cross LG dam its a heck of a lot tougher to track them.
Least there was a fishery in the upper river this year. People seem to bitch either way it goes. Me, Id rather have a chance to catch a salmon then sit home wishing I had a chance.
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I agree with you, much better to have a season than to not. Your guess is as good as mine as to what happened to the fish after they crossed lower granite, but I know there were lots of fish being pulled from the river in riggins. Still, to say that that's the only reason is illogical. Sure seems like the numbers over lower granite should have yielded larger returns everywhere though, so there's some missing link. I would be interested in what FG knows or thinks about the returns or lack there of to certain rivers and tributaries.
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We were up there in early August last year and there were hundreds of fish in the deep pools. the natives were catching them right and left at the bridges. I assure you there will be a lot of fish available for the natives in the coming weeks. Not sure why they are keeping the fish away from the tag holders. But I wish I knew.
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Seems like a pretty decent run to me, 4,000 already over Lower Granite, and still plenty of fish coming over Bonneville I counted around 30 pit tags over Bonn in the last week. There are still fish 3 weeks to a month from getting there. I am sure when its all said and done they will have more fish than they know what to do with in the hatchery.
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Theres still SF pitt tags showing up at Bonn but they are almost all jacks. Only 3 adult pitt tags over in the last 2 weeks.
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