Satsop River

The Satsop is the Grays Harbor river the crowds skip. Its East and West Forks come down out of the southern Olympics and the timberland north of Elma, meet about six miles above the Chehalis, and run a short main stem past the Highway 12 bridges to the big river at Satsop. The East Fork carries most of the fishing, because the Bingham Creek hatchery sits upstream of Schafer State Park and draws hatchery coho and winter steelhead up it. It is free-flowing and rain-fed, so it rises and falls fast: a good storm brings fish in, and the water can drop back into shape within a couple of days.

Fall is the main event. Chinook start in late summer and are best in September and October. Coho are the most dependable run, coming in strong in September and holding through November. Chum overlap with them and peak from October into December. Winter steelhead arrive in November and peak in December and January on both forks, and the season runs to March 31, with selective gear rules from January to protect the wild fish.

Read the flows at the Satsop gauge by the Highway 12 bridges, below the forks. As a rough guide, the river fishes from about 700 to 2,500 CFS, and past about 4,500 it is high and brown. In low summer and early-fall water the East Fork is a walk-and-wade river around the state park, and boats need a bump of rain to float it. Swing or strip bright coho flies and chum patterns in the fall, and swing for steelhead in the green water on the drop.