River Reports
This page is a living record of river reports and updates. Whenever I visit a river I will try to post a brief recounting of the state that river was in when I visited, fish activity, clarity, crowds and so forth. The intent is not to hot hole rivers or spots, but instead to provide helpful reports on my favorite rivers.
January 20, 2025
Sol Duc River - Whitcomb Dimmel to Rayonier
River very low and clear. Beautiful, very cold day. Anchor line frozen, eyelets frozen. Saw a big steelie darting around beneath our raft, but no takers. Wonderful time on my favorite river. The “Double Rapid” section went fine, but we didn’t stay left as advised by our friend Jeff, and had to drag a bit. Would advise ultra “quiet”, small gear in these conditions.
January 19, 2025
Hoh River - Morgan’s to Allen’s
River at 1200 CFS. Cold conditions, air temp at around 28F. Conditions low and clear, threw beads, worms, and spinners but with little result. Two whitefish, no steelie takes. The five other boats we talked to all got skunked as well. Teagan and I both had one big steelie bite just before sunset at a secret spot above Morgan’s, we BOTH lost them though! :(
January 5, 2025
Sol Duc River - Hatchery to Whitcomb Dimmel
Hired Keith Allison for a day steelheading on the Duc. Keith is excellent and well worth the money. River was in excellent condition. Float was about 15 miles. Morning was slow with little to no action running worms and beads under floats. Switched to Bobber Dogging and the day picked up with two misses and one landed wild hen!
January 4, 2025
Salmon River, Hoh River, and Bogachiel River
Spent much of the day scouting the conditions of these three rivers in search of both hatchery and wild fish. Had never fished the Salmon River before. Salmon has no gauage, but Queets was about 5600 CFS and rising. Other anglers had success, though we spent much of our time exploring the structure and banks of the river.
Visited a couple of holes on the Upper Hoh and had no action, river was relatively low but rising, at around 3000 CFS.
Bogey was in excellent shape and we fished just above the hatchery with no luck.
December 14-15, 2024
NF Stilly and Sauk Rivers
Sauk 3000 CFS ~ 3 ft vis, Stilly 4000 CFS ~2 ft vis. Much brighter water than last weekend. Still some coho around. Bank anglers trying their luck for steelhead at popular spots on the Stilly. Hooked into a beautiful Coho buck and a nice whitefish on the Sauk and promptly released both. Caught on a twitching jig.
December 7, 2024
NF Stilly and Sauk Rivers
Stilly
Unfishable chocolate milk. Water levels rose fast starting early, 2000 CFS to 12,000 in a matter of hours.
Sauk
Same as Stilly, rose super fast and was quickly unfishable. 2000 to 14,000 in a matter of hours.
November 29, 2024
Bogachiel River - Hatchery to Wilson’s
River dropping, gauge at ~26.4 ft. Water very clear. Lots of anglers at the hatchery, on the bank and in drift boats. No fish caught.
November 28, 2024
Hoh River - Cottonwood & above Morgan’s
River dropping, at 2000 CFS. Visibility about 3 ft, quite clear not much debris. Not much happening at Cottonwood. Some fish in upper river, caught a nice coho hen.
November 17, 2024
Skykomish River
River at 5000 CFS. Visibility about 1-2 feet. Lots of debris in the water with stormy conditions and high flows. Tough fishing conditions even up just below the forks. Used big and bright steelhead worms, but low chance of strike in those conditions. Would wait for flows to go down.
November 16, 2024
Snoqualmie River
River was high but pretty clear, probably around 3 or 4 feet of visibility. 40 degrees outside and rain. Water conditions definitely fishable. Threw jigs, spinners and floated some steelhead worms. No bites, no action, no signs of life. No remains either. Fished late afternoon to early evening. Fished only for an hour or so.
November 9, 2024
Skykomish River - Sultan to Ben Howard Launch
Floated from around 9 am to 3 pm. Were surprised by the slow speed of most of the float, discharge was around 2950 cfs. Fish were rolling on river right at the deep wall at the start of the float. Noticed bank anglers having success at the tail outs of gravel banks. Caught trout on our jig float set up using the center pin. Had some bites on beads/eggs. Lots of zombie chum out and about, one even had the energy to bite a spinner!
November 3, 2024
Satsop River - West Fork to Highway 12
River at 3160 CFS. Visibility about 1 foot. Floated West Fork to Highway 12. Coho rolling mostly on river right, along the stretch across from Juel’s Nursery. Fished that bank with bait, beads, spinners and jigs for 2 hours with maybe 1 or 2 hits. Encountered 2/3 jet boats and about 6 drift boats throughout the day. No fish caught. Visibility seemed a bit too low, WDFW officer said it had been a slow day at the take out. Afternoon to early evening.
November 2, 2024
Skykomish River - Reiter Ponds
River at 3880 CFS. Visibility decent, about 4-5 feet. Bank fished above and below Reiter ponds. Crowds were thick, several hooking up to fish, but we had no bites fishing eggs, beads jigs, and spinners. All hook ups that we saw were just below the hatchery intake. No fish rolling or rising, but action was solid. Most people were float fishing, drifting bait, jigs, and beads. Afternoon to early evening.
October 27, 2024
Sol Duc River - 101 Bridge Closest to Forks
River high, after solid rains. Bank fished under the bridge closest to Forks. Struggle continued, no bites on eggs, spinners or jigs. Saw one other person hook up out of a drift boat on the far side basically sitting on the rising fish. Oh yeah…tons of rising fish on the far side. Visibility was solid. Early morning to afternoon. No pictures taken, this is a photo from the same spot a few months earlier. No crowds.
October 26, 2024
Hoh River - Morgan’s to Allen’s
River at 4000 CFS. Visibility < 1 foot, barely fishable. Floated quickly to preserve daylight and fish elsewhere. River was moving fast and was chocolate milk. Hit a coho traveling upstream with my paddle. Oxbow was doable, but a bit intense. Canyon section beautiful as always. One or two other boats.
October 26, 2024
Sol Duc River - Secret Hole
River was highest I have seen it, much more fishable than Hoh. Shockingly no rolling or jumping fish. Teagan caught a resident steelhead / rainbow on a black and green Steelhead Slammer, maybe 17 in or so? Caught in a pool before a riffle. Afternoon to evening. No crowds.
October 18, 2024
Hoh River - Secret hole
River at 880 CFS, hours before spiking to 18,000. Visibility solid. No bites, but saw a large chinook that put on a show for us. It jumped on the far side of the hole once, then jumped about 12 more times all throughout the hole for the next minute or so. It had a gold spinner lodged in it’s jaw. This hole always has fish holding in it. Afternoon to evening. No crowds.
October 12, 2024
Stillaguamish River - Somewhere near Blue Stilly Park
Visibility good, maybe too good. Water was very low. Coho rolling consistently on far bank. Took my parents out, mom was the only one to get a fish, a nice 10 in rainbow on an orange and silver Steelhead Slammer. Salmon were stubborn today. No crowds.
October 6, 2024
Satsop River - Highway 12
River around 300 CFS. Visibility good. Coho rolling consistently on far bank. Several anglers out on the bank with us. Teagan hooked into a large spawny coho. Flares of red and black on the beast and had good fight in him. Teagan fought him to the bank, and he made several runs and jumps. He spat the hook out and it rehooked in its Dorsal fin. He came off before we could get a picture. First freshwater salmon of the season for us. Caught early evening.