Blue Creek Steelhead

[buckfvr]

I am gratefull to have fished the Cowlitz from the late 70s through the wonder years........I can remember fishing the point in the peak of the winter run with only 4 guys there.......talk about hook ups !!!!!!  I can remember the springer runs that  were nonstop action.

The Cow has gone the way of the Skagit....never to regain its glory days.  The Cow was an amazing experience for those who could be there late 70s through the 80s, but most of all, the earlier years with literally no fishing competition.  I guess many of us took salmon and steelhead for granted because of how it was......you wanted fish, you went and got it.
 
We would go down friday after work and punch two fish before midnight and then punch two more before day break....then head out for breakfast and the trip home.............awwww, what it was............

[wildmanoutdoors]

John's got it right. And TPU was under contract in the good ole days to release a set number of fish. Then to get around it the "restore" campain came and washed TPU's contract obligations down the drain.

Mayfield dam has no fish passage. Make the Cow a hatchery monster like it used to be and forget the "restore" part of it.

[snowpack]

no fish in the cow this year, nothing to see here... move along...

In all seriousness, does anyone know what has happened down there in the last 10-12 years?

 It used to be loaded with fish in the winter, the Blue Creek lot would be full of campers, the boat launch would have 20 trucks in line first thing in the morning ready to launch their boats. Fishing was awesome, with 10+ fish days being a good day.

I think that is the case almost everywhere in the state.   Mostly I think it is due to dialing down hatchery plants.  Seems they used to plant a lot more (whole lot).  Even letting private groups plant.  I still see some of the abandoned hatcheries out in the woods.  They used to allow a lot of volunteer work.  If you fished certain spots near the old hatcheries and were the first one there in the morning or last to leave, the gate was open and you'd toss a bucket of pellets in the ponds.  Then they had fish trailers that you could borrow and hitch to your truck and you could go put fish that you clipped in streams around the area...some really small creeks got planted, but they gave a place to fish near town and while the big rivers were blown out.  If you fish the rivers that the tribes plant, seems they haven't changed much...which was average then, but seems like good fishing now.

[Shane54]

This has already been said but it's to "improve native runs of fish in the river" which I think is total BS! The only true native salmon in that river WERE chums! Yes at one point there was a native steelhead run in that river but it has long since gone! Any " native" fish pulled out of that river is a misclip or a descendent of a hatchery fish.