It’s Christmas and anglers still are catching coho in the Klickitat, plus in the Columbia at the mouth of the Klickitat.
Almost 200 winter steelhead returned to the Cowlitz Salmon Hatchery last week. Streamflow in the Cowlitz River was high Wednesday at 11,500 cubic feet per second.
Next Wednesday is the final day to salmon fish in the Columbia from Interstate 5 to the Highway 395 Bridge at Pasco, in Drano Lake and in the Elochoman, Grays and Washougal.
Starting Jan. 1, any chinook kept downstream of Interstate 5 must have a clipped adipose fin, plus in the Lewis and Deep rivers. The daily limit is two adult salmon in the Columbia and lower Cowlitz and one fin-clipped chinook in the Kalama and Lewis.
Streamflows on Wednesday were 1,960 cubic feet per second in the East Fork of the Lewis River, 11,700 at Ariel on the North Fork of the Lewis River and 2,050 on the Washougal River at Hathaway Park.
Battle Ground Lake was stocked last week with 4,000 rainbow trout, while Klineline Pond received 1,000 trout.
Angler checks from the Washington (WDFW) and Oregon (ODFW) departments of Fish and Wildlife:
Mid-Columbia — Klickitat River mouth, four boaters with two adult coho kept. (WDFW)
John Day River arm, nine boats with two steelhead kept and six released. (ODFW)
Cowlitz — Forty boaters with three steelhead and one adult coho kept plus two steelhead and one jack chinook released; 105 bank rods with nine steelhead and nine adult coho kept plus two adult coho released. (WDFW)
Lewis — Six bank rods with one steelhead kept. (WDFW)
North Fork Lewis — Sixteen bank rods with one steelhead kept; six boaters with one coho released. (WDFW)
Klickitat —Nine bank rods with 16 adult coho kept and three released. (WDFW)
