Cowlitz

[2MANY]

Awe the good ole days.

[D-Rock425]

Awe the good ole days.

when were the good ole days?

[fowl smacker]

Awe the good ole days.

when were the good ole days?

Back in the early to mid 90's if you weren't catching your steelhead limit on the Cowlitz in very short order you didn't have your line in the water.  The limit at some points were 6 steelhead and many many times, me and my uncle would have no problems catching 12 fish in a couple to a few hours.

[D-Rock425]

I fished it a lot in the mid 2000's and had some crazy days.

[2MANY]

80s.
AND they were good to eat summer runs and not these egg sprayers.

[steeleywhopper]

Fished it this last weekend and worked for the 8 we caught over the course of 2 days.

[JimmyHoffa]

Awe the good ole days.

when were the good ole days?

Old timers have told me that the steelhead and salmon fishing sort of peaked around 1967.  The population of people, river access, regulations, plants led to some really, really good fishing.  One guy I knew started steelheading around 1945 and said it was pretty good then.  Any creek or river, even some ditches had fish regularly.  Basically said that back then the main reason for a boat was that you would have too many fish to physically carry around.  Almost all agree that the fishing took a major dive in the mid 1970's.

[ASHQUACK]

Major dive in 1975. That's when the Boldt decision was handed down. There were still some good rivers up until about the late 90's. Now most everything that has a run is closed or fished out or simply a fraction of what used to be.

[M_ray]

Awe the good ole days.

when were the good ole days?

70’s and 80’s and 26 trailers would produce a hundred fish This time of year not just a handful. When it was hot The parking lot was full and there were trailers parked all the way down the road past the house on the east at blue creek.

[Bullkllr]

The Cowlitz winter run hatchery production spiked in the early 70s to levels never seen before or since. I was pretty young, but old enough to remember just how crazy things were for a few years. Bank fishing there were more fish on the bank than people. You literally had to watch where you stepped. Literally thousands, into the tens of thousands, fish caught per month during the peak of the runs. You could drive down what became the trail to Blue Creek. 

[millerwheeler]

Well here some more inspiration. .....ya it’s changed a lot over the years but still great memories to be had

[HntnFsh]

You could drive down what became the trail to Blue Creek.

I did that many a times. I remember watching a couple locals cleaning house on the little island throwing small green Rooster tails.

[WSU]

The Cowlitz winter run hatchery production spiked in the early 70s to levels never seen before or since. I was pretty young, but old enough to remember just how crazy things were for a few years. Bank fishing there were more fish on the bank than people. You literally had to watch where you stepped. Literally thousands, into the tens of thousands, fish caught per month during the peak of the runs. You could drive down what became the trail to Blue Creek.

I can’t imagine this. Literally can’t fathom that kind of fishing.

[4fletch]

I fished it a lot back in the 70's what good memories I am So lucky to have .limits all the time lots of 12 lb to 16 lb fish

[duckmen1]

Any general tackle recommendations for blue creek/cowlitz steelhead for bank angler. Used to other fisheries using float and jig or floating beads and eggs. But hearing its a drift fishing show with long leaders. Making me scratch my head a bit. Figured I would see what you guys had to say from personal experience of methods along this stretch of river. I have a little knowledge as well as some tackle for all method types so can be prepared to run a wide variety of setups. Thanks for any tips guys