On Saturday I had to drop a kid off in Grand Mound for the day so instead of driving back and forth from Skagit County I decided to spend the day exploring the area and pestering the local fish population. So maps, WDFW regs and information on all the local rivers in hand I headed out. After extensive scouting around I ended up fishing The Willapa, Chehalis and Skookumchuck Rivers (see respective reports).

I scouted numerous areas on the Willapa from Forks Creek down to the tide water. After walking in and checking many holes I settled on a few that looked promising. The first produced a number of colored up Chinook but a creek just upstream blew out while I was there and the water conditions deteriorated quickly. I started fishing the area with a white yarn/metallic green corky set up and as the water conditions changed went to swinging a rainbow colored Steeli spoon. Both were productive and I hooked a number of Chinook and a small steelhead but the water conditions got so bad that I went looking for better conditions.

I moved upstream a mile or so and scrambled down a significant hill (I decided on the way back out that it was really a cliff), trekked my way through a bunch of brush and found the river. The run was perfect, long deep pools tailing out through small bolder fields. I switched out my spoon for a float and jig combo, figuring that a ¼ ounce flame and purple jig would be the ticket. After playing with the depth a bit the fish found my offering irresistible. My float would sink out on every drift, sometimes a couple times in a drift but because the wind was blowing so hard I was only able to hook up every couple drifts. I fished a number of other areas, some successfully and others the hike in was nice. In all my day on the Willapa produced in 27 Chinook and 1 small steelhead all released.

While checking out an area down by the tide water I did see two hunters that managed to discharge a gun in their truck, shooting a hole through the firewall with the slug exiting out the front quarter panel leaving a nasty exit wound in the fender. Actually…it scared the crap out of me, I was sitting in my rig looking at a map and I thought that they shot my Land Cruiser.

Mike Carey

10/19/2009 12:36:00 PM

wow, you had an amazing day out there (read all 3 of your reports). great fun to be free to do all that exploring. good for you.

The Quadfather

10/19/2009 1:22:00 PM

It would have sucked to have been shot after such a great day of fishing. Very nice reports.

goin_postal

10/19/2009 8:49:00 PM

holy crap 27 kings? how big were they? i went to the cow and hooked into around7 and i got sick of catching them

rseas

10/20/2009 7:22:00 AM

I would say 12-18 pounds, they were all cookie cutter fish. In part I kept after it because I figured that with the rain there would be some bright coho hiding in the river somewhere. I find it funny, strange or something. The coastal streams and Columbia system had a surplus of chinook this year but the Puget Sound stocks fell well below the forecasted returns. What is up with that? They all feed in the Pacific so offshore survival should be the same. Where are our local chinook?

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