J
JeannaJigs
I know that illness... luckily im 3 minutes above the hatchery, and dont start work until 1:30 in the afternoon... so i dont catch it often.
Nutty to me, more or less curbs my urge to hit that river for steelhead. I guess its good for me, I hope they all stay down there.
Nutty to me, more or less curbs my urge to hit that river for steelhead. I guess its good for me, I hope they all stay down there.
Wouldn't be so bad if that was river wide, but the 100+ I speak of is just in the mile below the acclimation site. 60,000 smolts released...1-2% average adult return..1200 fish tops. 900 of which will go towards whittaker, that leaves 300 for lake creek.
These fish start showing up in December and run through April...180 fish a month...
You are very right about the insane number of people on the Whitaker drift. But you are way off on your numbers of fish. There is that many smolts released at both Whitaker and Green Cr sites.. Plus another 20,000+ released from Letz Cr. I have seen a good year with nearly 4,000 adults returned to Whitaker trap, in fact that was in '09. An average year at Whitaker is closer to 1800 adults. When the river drops below the 7' mark, the lower river below the confluence with Lake Creek is very much fishable. Allthough the lower river is best between about 6' and down to around 4.8'. Red Hill gets really bumpy if the water is lower than that.. Seen quite a few boats hung on the same dang rock..Good fishing though, from a boat of coarse..