The time has quietly arrived when we are forced to remember the summer that was.
This happens because we can feel the fall. An unfamiliar chill clings to the evening air. Grass remains singed and dormant. Leaves crisp and turn bronze, then flutter to earth in common fallible inevitability.
A season’s change can spark regret and discomfort. Time has grown short for grand plans and ambitions, but the heat rages on and fiery threats hover ominously in areas where the threat has not manifested into real life nightmare.
Months misspent and opportunities squandered pang like hungry bellies with the arrival of Labor Day and the impending closing of a chapter. Like a reader reluctant to finish a good book, we try to slow our pace.
Like marine-layer fog over a cloud-shrouded bay, the haunting memory of what once was and the torturous doubt of what will be conspire to obfuscate the reality of today.
Crops beg for water in hopes of filling a region’s promised cornucopia while wandering salmon wonder where to go. Sunburst sunsets bore hyper-hued rays through wildfire’s exhaust. Muddled either makes a false harvest moon.
Grapes only plump in the rain. Raisins only wither in the sun. Wash down with wine. Rinse and repeat.
Nothing is certain in this time of transition. The world may be an oyster bearing an entire string of pearls, or the ocean may turn to acid and dissolve the treasure from motherly clutches.
Fear not my friends, and stare brazenly into the smoke hazed sun in order to squeeze all of what remains of this unique vintage. It will be many moons before we spend another summer in the sun, but sun-kissed raisins remain wrinkled all the while.
FISHIN’
The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife implemented a new regulation for the Buoy 10 fishery this week that eliminated the harvest opportunity for unclipped king salmon.
Furious angling efforts and a hot bite forced fish officials to amend the regulations on the fly.
“This year’s Buoy 10 chinook fishery got off to a fast start and just kept going,” said Guy Norman, the southwest regional director for the WDFW, in a press release. “We had to switch to mark-selective regulations to meet federal conservation limits and to have a chance of keeping the chinook fishery open through Labor Day as previously scheduled.”
Norman estimated that the Buoy 10 fishery at the mouth of the Columbia had already brought 70 percent of the allotted harvest to shore by Monday when the change went into effect.
Wild Chinook salmon from the Columbia River protected under the federal Endangered Species Act.
As usual, unclipped coho must also be released around Buoy 10. Anglers are now allowed to harvest one adult hatchery Chinook per day as part of the two salmon daily limit, which includes hatchery steelhead or coho.
Upriver on the Columbia the fall salmon season is open all the way to McNary Dam. Buoy 10 boasted the best results last week with 1.9 fall Chinook and 0.36 coho caught per boat. Around Washougal boat anglers averaged 0.21 fall Chinook per vessel and boats in between Vancouver and Tongue Point brought in 0.56 fall Chinook each.
Most of the action on the lower Columbia River was again honed in on the mouth of the Cowlitz River, although a new gaggle of floaters popped up near Tongue Point. Smoky conditions in the basin seem to have depressed the overall angling effort on the lower Columbia.
Heading up the Cowlitz, anglers have been catching summer run steelhead in between the trout and salmon hatcheries. Tacoma Power recovery efforts at the Cowlitz Salmon Hatchery last week tallied 124 spring Chinook adults, 22 fall Chinook adults and 828 summer-run steelhead. River flows at Mayfield Dam were reported as 2,580 cubic feet per second on Monday.
Elsewhere, anglers have been hooking some summer run steelhead on the Kalama, while the East Fork Lewis River and Washougal rivers have been quiet since they were hit with hoot-owl and closure restrictions.
Boats on the Wind River have been catching, as the WDFW phrased it, “some steelhead,” while Drano Lake anglers continue to give wild steelhead a hard time. Recent catches have had just a little more than one-third of the catch made up of hatchery stock. That particular haul means the bulk of the fish have been dropped back into the warm water, as per WDFW regulations. Fall Chinook numbers have been increasing, however, and any king may be harvested.
Out past the breakers in Marine Area 1 (Ilwaco) last week anglers pulled in a little more than one salmon per rod. Two-thirds of that catch was comprised of coho. On the North Jetty the WDFW estimated that 1,237 bank anglers caught 171 Chinook and 1,318 coho. The average trip resulted in 1.2 salmon per rod.
While the vast majority of the angling effort has been focused on salmon some anglers have been dabbling a bit. The Kalama area, for instance, continues to produce a fair amount of legal size sturgeon, although the fishery is catch-and-release only at this time.
In between Camas and Washougal boats have been reeling in some walleye and up in the Hanford Reach anglers have been hauling in about one bass per hour, about one northern pikeminnow per hour and one walleye every 2.2 hours.
HUNTIN’
While most areas opened up to black bear hunting on Aug. 1, the remaining areas will open with the flip of the calendar to September.
The beginning of September will also bring numerous other hunting opportunities including archery hunting for black-tailed, white-tailed and mule deer in most areas.
Forest grouse, crow, mourning dove, bobcat, fox, raccoon, rabbit, hare, and coyote seasons also begin on Sept. 1, as well as early Canada Goose season in Area 2B.
Cougar season also opens up across the state on Sept. 1, but not everyone is happy about it.
The WDFW Commission recently voted to reject a petition put forth by several environmental organizations that objected to an increase in harvest levels for cougars this year in areas of Washington with confirmed wolf packs.
The petition was voted down 7-1 by the Commission, although they did commit to revisiting the issue prior to setting hunting regulations for 2016-17.
“Hunting pressure on cougars varies from year to year, based on weather, hunter participation and a lot of other issues,” said Larry Carpenter, commission vice-chair, in a press release. “The changes the commission made to the harvest guidelines last April do not present a risk to our state’s healthy cougar population.”
The harvest increases, approved in April, bumped up the allowable rate to as much as 21 percent in some areas, where previously it had been as low as 12 percent. There are 14 areas in Washington affected by the changes.
WDFW biologists estimate that those changes could mean an additional 15-30 cougars harvested per year. In 2014 163 cougars were harvested in Washington, out of an estimated 3,600 animals.
The increased harvest numbers were proposed by WDFW Commissioner Miranda Wecker in the hope of providing relief to rural communities which have been increasingly hounded by a growing wolf population. The idea is to lower the overall number of large predators in those areas, thereby lowering competition for resources.
WILDFIRES
On Wednesday 29 wildfires burned across Washington, including six between the Pacific Ocean and the Cascade Mountains. Hundreds of smaller fires have threatened to run amok in western Washington as well, including two in recent weeks in the vicinity of Onalaska.
Thankfully, local fire crews have been able to keep up. Mostly. The Alder Lake Fire near Mineral and Eatonville has been growing by about 30-acres in recent days, reaching 173-acres by Wednesday.
Meanwhile, the Okanogan Complex fire in north-central Washington established itself as the largest wildfire in Washington state history on Monday. As of Wednesday that fire was well more than 400 square miles and had left 280,267 acres charred in its wake. Those horrific tallies eclipsed last year’s Carlton Complex fire, which also burned in Okanogan County.
Even worse, the fire claimed the lives of three firefighters last week, and severely burned a fourth.
Joe Smillie, a coordinator for the DNR, said that things were smoky in Omak on Monday, with only about 1/8 of a mile of visibility. Those conditions were unchanged midweek.
“It’s hard to tell if things have gotten better today,” said Smillie. “The bad thing about the smoke is that it means the helicopters can’t fly. The good news is that means the wind isn’t blowing.”
Last Friday the DNR broke precedent and put out a call for volunteers to help with the fire. It was the first time in the state’s history that civilian volunteers were recruited by the state to fight a fire.
According to Smillie the response has been overwhelming.
“We got about 4,000 responses from that initial request and from that we forwarded about 500 individuals to be added to our roster,” said Smillie.
On Saturday the DNR edited its call for volunteers to include only those individuals with “red card” or “blue card” status. Those designations mean a person has already been certified to work a fire line or to operate heavy equipment. Some individuals were let in with a letter of recommendation from their local fire station in lieu of official certification.
Now the DNR has all the help they can use over in Okanogan County but Smillie knows that there are still a great number of Washingtonians who want to be of service to their neighbors.
“What we’d have them do now is contact their local fire stations,” explained Smillie. “Those guys are always looking for additional help and volunteers. It would be a big help to them to have more resources close to home.”
In order to volunteer your efforts, resources, or heavy equipment to the firefighting effort contact your local fire department. Western Washington coordination efforts for the DNR are being undertaken in Castle Rock, which can be reached at CRC.CastleRock@gmail.com.
