Travel / Outdoors

Mark Yuasa covers fishing and outdoors in the Pacific Northwest.

Salmon/Steelhead

Cowlitz River – Light effort and catch.  15 bank anglers had no catch.  4 boat anglers kept 1 hatchery steelhead.

Last week Tacoma Power recovered 37 winter-run steelhead during five days of operations at the Cowlitz Salmon Hatchery separator.

During the past week Tacoma Power employees released nine steelhead into Lake Scanewa above Cowlitz Falls Dam at the Day Use Site and six steelhead into the Tilton River at Gust Backstrom Park in Morton.

River flows at Mayfield Dam are approximately 6,580 cubic feet per second on Monday, March 4. Water visibility is nine feet.

Washougal River – 38 bank anglers released 4 wild steelhead.  13 boat anglers released 2 hatchery steelhead and 1 wild fish.

Lower Columbia below Bonneville Dam – During the first three days of March we sampled 760 salmonid anglers (including 270 boats) with 17  spring Chinook and 8 steelhead.  13 (76.5%) of the Chinook and 3 (37.5%) of the steelhead caught were kept.  All but one of the Chinook were caught by boat anglers from Kalama to Vancouver.  Bank anglers caught more steelhead than Chinook.  The steelhead were caught from Vancouver downstream.

10 (76.9%) of the Chinook sampled were upriver stock based on Visual Stock Identification.

Effort increased with the nicer weather, larger fishing area, and reports of a few more fish being caught.  280 boats and 355 bank anglers were found during the Saturday March 2 effort flight count.

The Dalles Pool – Boat and bank anglers are catching some steelhead.

John Day Pool – Boat anglers are catching some steelhead.   Fishing was slow from the bank.

Sturgeon

Lower Columbia below Bonneville Dam – We sampled 43 sturgeon anglers (including 16 boats) with 2 legals kept.  Boat anglers caught the legals in the Woodland to Kalama area.

Effort remains low but stable.   39 boats and 9 bank anglers were counted during last Saturday’s effort flight count.

The Dalles Pool – Boat anglers are catching a few legals.  Fishing was slow from the bank.

John Day Pool – Boat and bank anglers are catching a few legals.

Walleye and Bass

The Dalles Pool – Including fish released, boat anglers averaged ½ walleye per rod.  No catch was observed from the bank and little effort was observed for bass.

John Day Pool – Boat anglers averaged a walleye per every 4.5 rods when including fish released.  Little effort was observed for bass.

Smelt

Still lots of birds, seals, and sea lions in the lower Columbia but less concentrated this time.  Last Saturday they were spread out from Wauna powerlines down to at least Rice Island, where the plane turned around.  The heaviest concentration was from Price Island to Jim Crow, but they are on both the main channel side and the Clifton side of Tenasillahe.

EULACHON (COLUMBIA RIVER) SMELT

CLOSED STATEWIDE (including all marine and freshwater areas).