The Super Bowl Of Salmon Fishing

Hey, what's going on everybody out there. Welcome to another addicted fishing podcast. You're sitting here in studio. It's the month of July. It's actually summer, but with month of July coming and with summer coming, actually summer being here, even though it kind of wasn't very summery out in the ocean today, very little summer, very little summer this summer, but, uh, with it right on our doorstep, that means buoy 10. Yes. This is the talk for the Superbowl Sunday of salmon fishing in the lower 48. Uh, we are prepping and getting ready for buoy 10. I got Nick Popov, Eric Swanson in the house today. And, uh, yeah, we're going to talk a little bit about what are you doing? Like, what the hell are you doing right now? I'm actually taking a little bit of a break. I think that's important, you know, right before you start a busy season, like we're about to start is taking a break, enjoying, like you guys both have kids, you know, enjoying it before we go basically two months straight. You lazy sons of bitches. We're not all camera black. I don't know. I've been lazy, lazy, lazy every day since, uh, I don't even know, January, pretty much. It's been a long season. Yeah. It's been like, yeah, this spring to next season has been the gift that kept on giving and it's still giving too. I mean, it's like the Columbia is still full of springers. I mean, it's, it's amazing. And we've had the opportunity this year in the Columbia too, that we don't normally get in July. Well, I think that's a big thing, dude. We got that extension and then it just like carried into, we're getting another one extension, another one. They actually, when they had the date set for July 10th from staff recommendation, they pushed it out three more days so they could possibly fit another meeting in just to extend it, and then I think we blew out tax prediction, like in the next two days, a predict of the Bonneville dam counts going over. So I, I don't know. I think we could see summer fishing during the end of the month. So technically not buoy 10, because right now it's only open after the Astoria bridge. Like you could be salmon fishing right now. Right. Right now. I don't know. What was it? Three, four years ago. And it was super good. Five or six years ago. I was probably five or six years ago now. Yeah. It's, it's so funny. Cause I was telling, I was talking to a couple of other buddies about that. And I'm like, and I'm like, yeah, they're like, they're like, I'm like, yeah. I'm like, shoot. If the ocean's rough, I might just like fish above the bridge on a nice high tide or something like that. And they're like, Oh, well, will they be there? And I'm like, well, let's see. Last year on August one, when we all went fishing, like how many fish were stuffed into the estuary last year? Now, did they all just show up on August one? I bet those fish were milling around there for weeks. You know that now that there's, you know, basically 2000 fish a day still going over Bonneville. There's still moving fish coming through. Like all the fish I killed yesterday, they all had sea lice on them. They all had scales falling off. So this fish are burning through there. So they're there. They're there when they want to be. And the other thing too, is like last year and whatever, well, honestly, what happens every year is, you know, we saw a huge explosion of the spring Chinook numbers, we've seen a huge explosion of the summer Chinook numbers, they've under-forecasted everything, but even on not these like giant robust spring and summer years, we see coated wire tags in the buoy 10 fishery after August one for like Sandy river springers. Sandy river springers is a big one. Like we see tags and we see, so there's going to be this presence of springers still and summer. I know the first fish I killed last year on August 1st was a giant summer Chinook, no spots. I was right next to you. There was no way that was any kind of a fall. And there was actually, I mean, I think the large majority of what we were catching down there was summer Chinook, you know, those small spots, big body, giant wilds, you know, so spots on them and then they were gone. What? Four days later, he was like, well, they were gone. I remember the second day kind of stuck. Yeah. You get, you, you, you put a good beating on them and there was, there was some serious, so this year I'm going to make sure that I do as much damage in July before they get there and just to make sure we don't experience this huge high on August 1st, everyone drove back into that Marina thinking they were hot stuff. And then they went out. They do. Oh, you better learn how to fish boys. I went from having like 35 bites in the morning to having like six or seven. I was like, dude, this isn't good. And then I ran to tongue point. Like, I mean, it was, it was, you know, everybody's struggling when the phone's ringing too, because everybody's catching fish, nobody needs a call. But when there's no fish getting caught, dude, that's every 10 minutes. You find them yet where, you know, have you talked to anybody? That's a dead giveaway. That is tough. Yeah. I remember pulling into the Marina on August 1st. Cause I was just snake bit. Like I just kept catching wiles after wiles. I know one guy caught five fish and killed all five of them. It's an 18 fish to kill four. So I come walking, go crawling into the Marina after all these guys are all like cleaning their boats and stuff. And I kind of looked over and yelled at him. I'm like, yo, damn it, dude. I go after that. I need a Gatorade and a cigarette. It was like, holy cow. Yeah, it was good time. What do you guys think is going to happen this year? I think we're in for the same. I mean, if it's trending, like what we've seen with, I mean, you look at the sockeye, you look at the summer Chinook, the spring Chinook, and now we've got forecasted what four 80 total or something like that coming to the mouth. Yeah. I just have to believe that it's under predicted. I mean, I think we're going to catch a lot of fish. I just think a lot of the fish you catch in the fall are wild fish. And those 24 days down there, we're going to have to sort through a lot of them. Yeah. I think the clip right last year, they said was 60%. And they, they kind of just based that off of like what they see, um, you know, when it is wild and also what the sport Creel says they release. So hopefully maybe we'll see a little better clip rate because I do know, like, I do know a big component of the early fish are like Bonneville pool hatchery fish, which unfortunately are not the best spring Creek turf, but, uh, for the opportunity to keep an ocean fresh fish, there you go. Uh, we'll talk about that in the later podcast, but I think, you know, we should see an okay, an okay clip rate. It just sucks because like you said, with, with this big, there's a lot of fish that possibly could come back. The problem is there's just very little opportunity for in-season management down at buoy 10. All right. Now, once we see a dam count and once we see it now, of course, other than. Holy crap. You guys are catching a lot of fish. We better close it because that has actually already occurred this fall season in Neah Bay. That's what I, in Neah Bay marine area for in the first two days of the fishery, they have a very robust Chinook fishery and a very good coho fishery, but in order to have a coho fishery, you have to have Chinook impacts the first day. I think they fish something like 45, 60 days. It's a long Chinook fishery. The first two days, they killed 12% of their allotted quota. Yeah. And they were supposed to project like 50,000 or something if they let them go or something. Yeah. It's like, it's an astronomical number. And the thing about it is it's like, okay, it's not that. It's not that what they do, the way they get their kind of expected catches, they take the forecast and they go, okay, if there's this many fish around, there'll be this much effort. And we can kind of divulge and just say, you know, this is kind of the range that they're going to catch them in. And then that's how they structure a season. Right. Like everything's based off the forecast. Um, but then, you know, they based off forecast, well, twice as many or three times as many fish show up. And then they start getting blasted at a two Chinook per person limit out in the ocean. Like all of a sudden that quota, like it looks like, holy crap, you're gone. And in order for them to conduct a silver fishery later on, they have to have Chinook impact. So they quickly brought that, reduced that back to one fish like after the first two days. Yeah. But to me, that's a good sign. That's what I was going to say. That's fine. That's what I think. Healthy ocean for everywhere. Right. And not to mention too, like even spots that generally don't see like a lot of like Hatchery Tillamook or Hatchery, Hatchery Coho this time of year early, like they're just getting just tons of them already down in the central and Southern or Northern Oregon and central Oregon coast. It's crazy. I mean, you're seeing it up and down the coast right now. South is really, really good. North is really, really good. I mean, it's, I'm just, I think we're in for something special, but yeah. Marine area one, two, like kind of, I sat out the first week because I just had people that just wanted to get the white meat, get the bottom fish. But then I went out my first salmon day today and even for how rough it was, how gross the ocean was, it was still like, yep, there is a fast improvement of Coho sitting out here. And so we blasted them and headed for the barn as quick as we could. So I think, uh, and you know, reports prior to that, you know, the last few days sound like it was pretty solid, you know, limits by eight, you know, good stuff fishing and keeping in mind that this year the component for the A runs is only like, I want to say it's like 600,000 or something like that. Like a lot of the forecast is supposed to be B run, which I wish us tributary guys, we'd rather have, um, so it's kind of a weird dynamic because like, you know, the actual Aaron, I think is less for the forecasted forecasted. Aaron is less than it was last year, but yet we're starting off strong. Yeah, no, I'm excited. I'm super excited. I think that I, the tough part is there's no way to get it in that in-season management down at Bowie 10, other than closing, other than closing. Yeah. And so, and then it's kind of gross because that completely hosed us on a bunch of sockeye fishing and a bunch of summer fishing. We should have had this fishery open. And I, I always, I always compare the state's reaction to opening a fishery, like gas prices, right? Like give them any excuse. They'll close it. Give them any excuse. They'll raise those gas prices, but I got it. Sure. Slow for coming down and by God, they're sure. Slow for opening stuff up really obnoxious. What happened to like the, like these mandatory meetings, like mandatory meeting to close it. But why not a mandatory meeting? No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. They do not have to have a, they can just do joint action overnight and close the fishery with less than 24 hours. But then to get a fishery open, we have to have a compact meeting. We have to have all this positive circumstance. No, you can do joint state management. And there's, I think there's some pretty rough politicking going on with some of the forecasting we're seeing and some of this kind of like opening stuff up. I think there's some pretty, uh, pretty rough politicking going on right now. What is your, what's your prediction on, I mean, do you think that if they do, I mean, do you think it's at risk for being shut down in the first 24 days? No, because we use like, so I don't even think it was that we use when we actually resort to a hatchery only fishery. And that was kind of the way that the thing was structured this year. Like last year they said, okay, if you guys can just give us till the 10th and then you guys can go wide open after that, then you know, we'll be, we should be good and I'll get us in the clear and I'll get you guys till Labor Day weekend because one of the management goals that they try to set with the forecast of the seats, try to set the season with a forecast is to get buoy 10 to Labor Day. And I don't know why they came up with that. If you don't like that, they always try to, well, they've missed it the last four or five years, but that's what they do. And so, but then looking at it, like in those first 10 days last year, we used less than like 10% of like what was, what was given to us, like for our constraining stock, which was our lower river fish again. And they said, you know, it's like you don't even burn it. So then we, we went back and said, okay, well shoot double that to triple that thing. If you shut us down early in buoy 10, everybody just moves up river and then it exasperates the problem because the mouth of the callus produces tons of coated wire tags that are lower river stock fish. And then we get blasted in the middle river. And so if you have that early closure with the effort shift, then it shuts that down. It shuts that down. And then we, we lost a week of fishing that we shouldn't have lost. We left 30,000 fish on the table last year because the states couldn't figure it out for lack of better term. And it's so busy from like a guide, a guide standpoint, shuffling and moving clients from buoy 10 to Cowlitz to above Vaughnville. And it's even more tough when the fishing is that, because then it's like, it's like, you know, you're leaving good fish and your clients don't understand. And it's like, wait, why are we closing this down? This thing is the best it's been in years. Exactly. You know? Yeah. And it's just like, well, it's because they are setting a season to a forecast and until they have some evidence to adjust that, because God forbid they use actually the sport catch as evidence. And I have talked to some managers that are playing with some quasi prediction, like, you know, these guys are doing this good in this week, then they're going to see this damn count this week. And they actually have gotten some success of that from what I've been told, like with the test fishery. That'd be cool. Like with this for spring Chinook, they, a couple of the ways they were kind of looking at like the test catch numbers. They knew they were going to have when they go above the day. Exactly. They knew that within about seven to eight, nine days, they were going to have a plus 10,000 fish and they got 13. Yes, they did. Yeah. I mean, it's pretty crazy what they're doing, but I'm glad they're kind of looking at that. But they, I think, you know, we as anglers and sportsmen, whenever we have a chance to talk to our managers or meetings, we need to be kind of like, Hey, you know, why don't you guys like my suggestion for this year for buoy 10 or for the fall is like, we should have automatic, like thresholds as in. If the Bonneville account, well, unfortunately this year with our constraining stock, lower the fish, but let's say it was upper right. It's like you wish before the season set, they're like, you guys are going to go till September 7th. Unless 200,000 fish are above, whatever that number is. Like, then we can all watch the damn count and get all excited. And then when we all get excited, it's like, Oh yeah, you guys have completely missed the sockeye forecast by like triple. Why don't you do something about it? And then like nine days later, they finally do. After you have two days where the damn counts over 50,000, they should have their meeting and they should. So for the record, those two days of the 50,000 was one half of their whole forecasted 30 day prediction of the run. So any second grader could go like, wow, I think we have 28 days left still, and I'm pretty sure we're going to get that. Yeah. Keep in mind on both sides that we had like 30,000 and 40,000 40,000. We went from not having enough fish to potentially a record run. Right. Oh, exactly. And that's, that's like, you know, a big miss that's in my opinion. Right. I mean, if you think about what that miss means and this is something to take away and this is something to kind of realize guys and, Oh, next week we got a special, actually you guys might know about it. We're actually going to bring in one of the Columbia river managers into the live feed and we're going to have this discussion because like, as we, you know, maybe you guys leave a comment below, shoot us a message, give us your ideas and thoughts and we can pass them along. Give us some good talking points because basically when they miss those forecasts that attributes thousands and thousands of angler days in a fishery that, that is that miss, you know, the economy, the, the amount of money that's being spent there, just everything's unbelievable. So like you might think, Oh, well you guys are just greedy fishermen. You, you just want to fish eight days earlier than you got. It's like, no, the reality is, is like, there's so much more to that. And then the other part of it is too, is like a lot of these fish are hatchery fish and they're just going to sit in front of a hatchery and go to waste. Yep. I mean, there's a lot of these fish are put there too for angler opportunity and we're not getting the angler opportunity at them. So, so now you just had 30, well, like last year at 30,000 rights go by, that we could have harvested, but somebody, eventually somebody needs to be a hold accountable for, I mean, something's got to change. Cause it, every year is like continuous and it just keeps happening. You see this as, as the runs are declining, they are over predicting. And as the runs are climbing, they're under predicting. And so after how many years, I mean, they've got to take that into consideration. I mean, we've, I think they use the first indicators. I think they can go back cause they have the data, right? If they use the first indicators of what a run does when it shows up and how good the fishing is, or is not, and use that, they have the data there. Like they have the data from the sport catch. Yeah. There are some things in the sport fishery that has made us more efficient over the last 10 years, no question. Um, but with that said, they can, they should be able to look at this. Um, I think they need to. I think so too. When, especially now that ODFW has gone without online tagging, like we were talking about earlier, you should, you should be able to track and Washington and Washington. Very, very short coming. Yeah. That's what I heard. I heard they were in the process. 6,000 fish got caught today. And we can, you know, that water fish is coming and they should be able to predict it up river. Yeah. I mean, let's be honest. We don't catch them all. Like we'd like to think we do, but I watched, I watched it. I've watched. He's pretty cool, dude. I will say this year, it was the coolest thing. Like anchoring up with my hummingbird, putting the side imaging on and watching the fish swim by was it's unbelievable how many fish swim by your boat that don't buy. Yeah. It's crazy. You're like blew my mind. Like I was pissed off. I was like, I was like, dude, there's no way that fish just might buy it. I didn't get to buy it. Now we tell you how to make a live on the back of the boat. And you see the little, it's just swim up to your 360, your spinner and then turn away and give you my, but that's for another podcast. Thanks again for tuning in. You guys, we appreciate it. Leave your comments below. Shoot us a message. Um, you know, I think we have, we think we had, because by the time you guys are hearing it, I'm going to say how we had a drop on our website, addicted dot fishing, July 10th, biggest drop in addicted fishing history, some cool stuff there. There might be some stuff there by the time you hear this. I don't know. It's worth checking out. Thanks for tuning in guys. Thanks for coming guys.