not for clint

ARRRRRG   I peeked anyway.   Some nice females there.   I got some time off next week, so the drought will stop there.  I WILL get one to the bank.

can't wait to get up there oct 6-9 and collect some eggs for steely season
 
had some huge hens last time up, but all the eggs were tight
 
 

That's a little tight compared to some areas we fished.  Didn't want to spend the money if we didn't need to. We didn't need to. 
 

I assumed 1/2 mile from estuary meant the pay/playground, my bad. Very cool. Not that I wouldn't fish the DSR.  Someday I hope to find a few more walk-ins like that. I'm working on it.  Not miserly, frugal and wise. Miserly people don't try to get some eggs for somebody that likes fishing them, even when you don't.
Charlie

2B-
I'm confused.  I would figure 1/2 mile from the estuary to be in DSR.  And as to tight, that looks less crowded than what I saw during steelhead  last year.  I stopped by the ballpark on my way home from a meeting yesterday and gave it a couple of hours try, and when I got on the river at 0430, there were at least 30 men in view in a similar amount of water to the photo, and still about a dozen when I left at 0700.  The only places I saw that may have been less crowded were Trestle soutth (6 cars) and Sportsman's south (13 cars).  You would have had to park on 13 for the compactor, 2a was full and the low lot was full (and the river was full, people walking all over the place.)  Like Clint, I had no hits despite using two kinds of wooly buggers, and getting into the good water where there were lots of very tight lipped fish, but it was two deep for some of the "needle" fishers to see what they were doing.  I did see one fly flinger land a legal king, and saw a couple of nice hen cohos go out on a rope, but there were a lot of yanker and cranker types, including a "guide" who raked one while using his cell phone and did not interupt his call while he led it downstream and handed off the rod to his client.  I won't be back on the weekends, or probably until the goblins are gone, as I'm not really good at balancing on someone else's shoulders, or holding them up with mine!
 
L13

Lucky, i guess that could be a possibility...although i would find it to be quite a coincidence that all of the mistakenly unclipped hathery fish coincidently all ran together for three weeks straight... i would think that we wouldve seen somewhat of a mixture of clips and no clips.... based on what i saw for three weeks straight was all NO CLIPS...yesterday everything i saw was clipped... i would also think that other tribs would not be any type of comparison as most other tribs dont have the same habitats/characteristics and base flows the salmon river does.

That is the problem finding the balance.
I think that they should flutuate the stocking numbers every year in an attempt to give some refief to the forage base.
I understand the CCs wanting to keep the number up.
Easier for them year in year out and if a year or two of natural survival crashed they still have their quarry of stockers.
I think this is short sighted since erring the other way could be devestaing for decades if it goes wrong.
I think the larger fish we are seeing is the result of the smaller plants after the drought year.
Fewer fish feeding on the same forage base means more fish for each one.
But like others here I am just a dumb fisherman.

Or a ticket for netting in a trout stream.  I'm also very interested in what they find on thwe Steelhead, but I think that will be a while.  At the SOL mtg last spring DEC indicated that next phase is cohos.  I spoke with a rep from Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources who says they have huge runs of kings and cohos in the northshore rivers, and Canada quit stocking Pacific Salmon a few years ago now.  It will also be interesting to watch the evolution of the Atlantic program in the SR.
 
L13