Was up at the Chahelis yesterday and the main channel past the hatchery is virtually none existent.
I had parked at the creek bridge before the hatchery and walked down to where the creek would normally connect to the river and there was no river! Everything just a massive dry rock bed. Spoke to a very forthcoming guy at the hatchery and it seems the cause is the backhoe some of the natives used above the hatchery to clear a channel that now directs almost all the water through the native reserve. Seems this provides them less of a walk and more privacy now. In trying to get the Feds to take action the DFO spoke with the band and understood that many members were not in favor of this yet the action was taken anyway. While on the reserve the DFO officers allegedly had their tires slashed and now refuse to go back so that section of the river may now have no policing at all(not that I’ve ever seen them take action against Natives). It appears nothing will be done about it this year.
Much of the returning hatchery fish will most likely have no way of getting to the hatchery unless serious rains occur which means the tax payers will have to pay for hatchery people to net the fish on another section of the river and truck them back. In the past the hatchery had always provided as much surplus hatchery fish as they wanted (no ripping required) but it seems these fish probably weren’t in their prime and therefore not good enough for market. The real potential problem now is that even now with a relatively moderate flow in the river the banks of the river in this newer channel are being eroded at an incredible rate and given a huge deluge in November the river could blow out and the whole reserve could be washed out. Guess who’s picking up the bill for that potential disaster?
Okay I digress, back to the fishing report or Rod is going to give me a spanking.
The newer main channel is in great shape over there if you want to trek in approx. straight across from where that creek before the hatchery is. Beautiful wide open “s” turn in the river with great shallow spot for landing your fish and combination of all types of water. If you head across up higher closer to the hatchery you’ll find the river is split into several smaller channels not as easy to fish. Saw loads of Chums, few Springs and two pools of stacked up Coho.
The pools were on the far side of the river one of which the Natives were ripping fish
from and the higher up one myself and two guys crossed and fished with no problems from the Natives. Was a hot sunny day and by time I got there at 11am didn’t see any Coho actually moving so best to get there early. Most Coho were already starting to turn color unlike the nickel ones I caught a week ago. My guess is that we’re half-way through the bulk of the returning Coho. Guys I was fishing with forgot the hatchery parking lot closes at 4pm and didn’t get back till 4:40pm and luckily they left it unlocked for them but they said don’t count on it in future.
I’ll be heading up again more than likely on Friday
if anyone is interested in meeting up.
Tight lines!
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Topic: Chehalis Oct. 25th: Cohos & Backhoes (Read 2416 times)