Spring chinook anglers get two more days — Friday and Saturday — in the lower Columbia River.
Boaters can fish from Tongue Point upstream to Rooster Rock, while bank rods can fish all the way east to Bonneville Dam.
The Columbia is a lot higher than when the early season ended on April 19. The streamflow at Bonneville Dam is up to about 325,000 cubic feet per second now, compared to 261,000 on April 19. The temperature is 53 to 54 degrees.
Washington and Oregon will get another upper Columbia-Snake run forecast on Monday and might meet again Tuesday to approve more fishing. The goal is to permit chinook retention when the steelhead season starts May 16 downstream of Interstate 5.
Angling has been good at both the mouth of Wind River and Drano Lake.
Boaters averaged an adult spring chinook per 3.6 rods last week at Wind River, including fish released. At Drano, boaters averaged a chinook kept per 4.4 rods. Bank anglers outside Drano in Bonneville pool averaged a chinook per three rods.
Spring chinook fishing is closed beginning Saturday in the Columbia between Bonneville Dam and the Washington-Oregon state line east of Umatilla.
Angler checks from the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife:
Mid-Columbia — Bonneville pool, 258 bank rods with 78 spring chinook kept and two released.
The Dalles pool, 35 boaters with 14 spring chinook kept and four released; 261 bank rods with 55 spring chinook kept plus 31 spring chinook and one steelhead released; 15 boaters with 16 walleye kept and nine released; 10 boaters with nine bass kept and 42 released; five boaters with one sublegal sturgeon released.
John Day pool, 106 boaters with 16 spring chinook kept plus six spring chinook and one steelhead released; 72 bank rods with seven spring chinook kept and seven released; 12 boaters with two walleye kept and four released; four boaters with 30 bass released; six bank rods with two legal sturgeon kept plus two oversize and five sublegals released.
Cowlitz — Eighteen boaters with four adult spring chinook and one jack kept; 56 bank rods with five adult chinook, two jacks and two steelhead kept plus one steelhead released.
Kalama — Twenty-four bank rods with two steelhead kept plus one adult and three jack spring chinook released; nine boaters with one steelhead kept plus five steelhead and four adult chinook released.
Wind — At the mouth, 557 boaters with 136 adult spring chinook and three jacks kept plus 20 adult spring chinook released; two bank rods with no catch.
Drano Lake — Twenty-nine bank rods with 15 adult spring chinook kept; 477 boaters with 109 adult spring chinook and three jack kept.
Klickitat — Twenty-six bank rods with nine adult spring chinook and two jacks kept.
