Smelt are reported in the Cowlitz River and dippers get a six-hour shot on Saturday to get 10 pounds of the silvery treats — or sturgeon bait.
Washington will allow dipping from 6 a.m. to noon Saturday and on Feb. 14. Ten pounds are about a quarter of a five-gallon bucket.
No fishing license is required.
Reports of smelt began trickling in the middle of last week. Smelt are fickle and can be close to shore and available for dipping one hour and gone the next.
Smelt dipping only is allowed in the Cowlitz, not the Lewis or other lower Columbia tributaries.
A spring chinook salmon was recovered at the Cowlitz Salmon Hatchery separator last week, along with 49 winter steelhead, 107 adult coho and two jack coho.
Sturgeon fishing continues to sputter along in the Bonneville pool. Anglers had kept an estimated 9.2 percent of the harvest guideline,though Jan. 25.
Walleye were caught in both The Dalles and John Day pools.
Icehouse and Little Ash lakes along state Highway 14 west of Stevenson were each stocked with 1,000 rainbow trout recently.
Silver Lake in Cowlitz County got 3,000 rainbow and Kress Lake near Kalama got 2,000 rainbow plus 21 adult winter steelhead.
Angler checks from the Washington (WDFW) and Oregon (ODFW) departments of Fish and Wildlife:
Mid-Columbia — Bonneville pool, 65 boaters with one legal sturgeon kept plus one oversize and 121 sublegals released; 62 bank rods with one legal sturgeon kept plus 13 sublegals released. (WDFW)
The Dalles pool, 15 boaters with one oversize sturgeon released; 21 bank rods with no catch; three boaters with one wild steelhead released; nine bank rods with no steelhead; nine boaters with six walleye kept. (WDFW)
John Day pool, 31 boaters with two legal sturgeon kept plus 12 sublegals released; 28 bank rods with one legal sturgeon released; seven boaters with four wild steelhead released; 18 bank rods with one wild steelhead released; 12 boaters with 18 walleye kept and four released. (WDFW)
Cowlitz — Three boaters with six steelhead kept; 26 bank rods; with two steelhead kept and one steelhead released. (WDFW)
