Secret Spots and why the Quinault is my Perfect River

Recently I received an email from a man I consider a role model. He cautioned me that I should be careful of giving away my spots on this blog, he was referring to steelhead spots. I do sympathize with him. He fishes the Hoh and Qillayute systems frequently and the winter crowds there make me sympathize with european management practices. I’ve never been a “secret spot” guy. I’m not a name dropper by any means, and my father would probably beat me to inch of my life if he ever read specific directions to one of our runs on this blog, but if someone I judge to be an honest fisherman, loose lips or tight, asks for fishing advice, I give it freely. 

My mentality has always been that here in the Quinault system, a little more angling interest will only increase awareness of the management needs of the watershed. When I stop using the word “interest” and start saying “pressure” that mentality will probably change. I doubt that will ever happen on the Quinault system. 

The New Coastal Regulations

Doug Rose has a great commentary up about the recent closures on the west end rivers over at His Blog. I completely agree with what he says. I want to take a second to talk about the impact on the Quinault with these closures. In the pamphlet it sites impact on salmon smolts as the reason for the closures, and only streams listed can be fished. Cook creek is the ONLY stream listed on the lower Quinault. Now, I should note that of all the coastal rivers, the Quinault is perhaps the least impacted by this regulation because of the large portion of its drainage inside the Olympic National Park and the Quinault Indian Reservation. This still manages to close my favorite creek, the place where I caught my first fish without parental supervision, even though all of the creek that is located within the jurisdiction of the WDFW is separated from the lower stem by a dry section for roughly 9 months of the year, and about a mile from the state/reservation line there is an impassable waterfall. These two natural barriers create a stream that does not support any Salmon and no Sea-Run Cutthroat and even if it did, logging activity has degraded a vast majority of spawning ground. A small number of steelhead make it up to state land, and admittedly there are a number of steelhead smolts that call the pools all the way to falls home, but this stream hosts one of the best resident cutthroat and rainbow populations in the entire drainage due to its natural barriers. These fish receive little pressure, in fact the only other people I've ever encountered on this creek were local kids going swimming. Meanwhile, the upper Quinault hosts considerable amounts of juvenile salmonoids of every species that calls this drainage home. In addition, this time of year holds no salmon fishery, a very small resident cutthroat fishery, and a few early summer steelhead in the upper river. The fish it has in abundance right now are the native char, Dolly Varden and ESU listed Bull Trout, that make their yearly spawning run in June both from the Lake and the Pacific. The upper river remains wide open under the new regulations. Is this the logic our lawmakers follow? Completely close, even to catch and release, streams with little potential for anadromous fish production, but leave wide open, even to wild harvest, a portion of the river where ESU listed fish are currently spawning? Doesn't make sense to me.