Lower Nooksack opens for marked salmon

But the color the Nooksack presents to anglers will depend on where the North Cascades freezing level lingers.

If it drops well below Mount Baker's summit, a greenish hue with some clarity will favor hardware fishers and September wading anglers may even be able to see their toes for the first foot or so of depth as they stride into the river.

However, if the warm weather returns and the frost line goes to 10,000 feet, the familiar drab grayish-brown brew of glacial meltwater will cloud the river prompting many anglers to switch to scented bait offerings.

Another yin and yang of higher flows is that in a 'wet' year with abundant water many of the lower river's riffles will be covered with enough water to make them easily negotiable for jet sleds. However, the greater water volumes will conceal more tackle grabbers, many of which were newly laid down in last winter's floods.

Through recent raises resulting from the stormfronts passing through, the Nooksack's flows have been slowly dropping. But at the average rate of 2,900 cubic feet per second (at Ferndale), the Nooksack is running at nearly twice it's 1,500 cubic feet per second median daily flow for this time of year.

FALL KINGS DIVIDED

Again protected under state rules in this year's fishery, as before, are naturally produced or wild fall chinook, though they don't have full ESA status yet. And when they show in early October, wild or unclipped coho salmon that have an adipose fin, the small appendage on their backs near the tail, will similarly be off-limits.

The chinook of September now congregating in the lower river, though of the same species, should not be confused with the earlier arriving federally protected native 'spring' chinook that are now spawning in the North and South Forks.

The fall kings are of recent hatchery origin (if marked) or are likely to be descendants of past cultured fall chinook stock.

The objective of this fishery and the significant late summer net and marine terminal area (Bellingham Bay) sport fisheries is to catch and remove the hatchery fish while leaving any natural-origin falls to the river. The future of these natural fish has not been fully decided, but the option is open for managers to provide protection so they may reproduce.

Releases of hundreds of thousands hatchery fall chinook juveniles in the lower river, mandated by Lummi Nation, are sustaining this opportunity.

Nooksack anglers will have almost the entire run of the main river to fish from the Lummi Nation boundary near Marine Drive upstream to a point at Deming behind the school district bus garage. They should also expect concurrent commercial fisheries, both now for the hatchery kings and later for hatchery coho and wild chum, conducted by both Lummi and Nooksack treaty fishers.

In the lower river, gillnets are drifted with the current, while in the upper mainstem, eddy gillnets are used. Both tribes have fishery hotlines that provide recorded information as to when and where treaty fisheries will occur.

If you have not fished the lower Nooksack for sometime, you may find old favored fishing holes off-limits. Long stretches of the Nooksack flow adjacent to privately owned land that is today posted 'no trespassing.'

Some property owners are amenable to anglers crossing their lands to get to the banks of the river, but increasing numbers are adamant about not having anyone on their property. Their frustrations are too numerous to list, but have as recurrent themes littering, loitering, rudeness, vandalism, gates left open and even rare violent physical confrontations.

WHERE TO GET TO THE RIVER

Fortunately, enough of the Nooksack's banks are in public hands that anglers are not faced with a feudal age choice: trespassing on someone's land to fish.

Dry ground fishers have in the Ferndale area, Vanderyacht and Pioneer parks as well as the downstream state/county holdings at Hovander Park and the Tennant Lake and Marietta units of Whatcom Wildlife Area, which provide long stretches of river bank to Marine Drive bridge.

Moving upstream of Ferndale, there is a Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife high bank access at the end of Harksell Road on the north side of the river and a low gravel bar access on the river's south bank at the Guide Meridian bridge.

Above Lynden, Riverside Park in Everson facilitates bank angler access and the east bank of the river at Nugent's Corner, now a combination WDFW and county park, is a long-time productive shore fishing haunt.

As always the best way to fish the most water is to do it afloat. Reasonably distributed, four publicly accessible watercraft launches are located on the main Nooksack from Ferndale to the forks.

They include:

? a concrete puncheon ramp at Ferndale, which will handle trailered sleds or drift boats, but beware that low flows can strand this ramp. A four-wheel drive vehicle is the best bet here. It's a WDFW access, so you'll also need to post your conservation or vehicle sticker. It's on the east bank of the river below the Main Street Bridge off Hovander Road.

? the gravel launch at the Everson's Riverside Park, which is suitable only for lightweight or carry-in watercraft (canoes, light drift-boats, inflatables, personal pontoons). The river often shies away from the bank here leaving only a shallow skiff of water. No sticker is required, but the gate closes at dusk. It's on the north side of the river downstream from the State Route 544 bridge off Park Drive (Stickney Island Road).

? WDFW's Nugents Corner concrete puncheon ramp, which is heavily used by anglers launching larger trailered sleds and drift boats, has good depth for both launch and retrieval. A conspicuous WDFW sticker is needed here to keep from getting a ticket. Turn off the Mount Baker Highway's eastbound lane just east of the Nooksack River bridge and drive under the bridge to the parking lot and ramp.

? the limited boat access at the forks of the Nooksack is a product of some anglers getting Burlington Northern-Santa Fe Railroad to allow them to rough-in a dirt road to the gravel bar underneath the railroad/highway (State Route 9) crossing on the North Fork. It's just above the confluence with the South Fork. Larger, heavy rivercraft often can't use this launch, but you can slide drift-boats down the gravel bank. No sticker is required here.

You may notice that several popular boat-launching points, such as the gravel bar below the ready mix concrete plant on River Road, are not included on this list. Though they have been heavily used as put-in, take-out spots for decades, they're located on private property and landowners have grown weary of the littering, loitering and vandalism (not all done by anglers) that has gone on.

Doug Huddle, the Herald's outdoors correspondent, works for the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife's Wildlife Program and has written a weekly hunting and fishing column for the Bellingham Herald since 1983 that appears Fridays. E-mail him at doug.huddle@bellinghamherald.com.