Saturday is the final scheduled day of smelt dipping in the Cowlitz, where dippers last Saturday generally got their 10-pound limits from Castle Rock downstream to the mouth.
Dipping will be allowed from 6 a.m. until noon. Ten pounds of smelt are about a quarter of a 5-gallon bucket.
It’s too early to fish for spring chinook.
But here’s a bit of good news: The first spring chinook of the year was counted Sunday at Bonneville Dam.
Rainbow trout have been stocked recently in several Southwest Washington waters.
In Clark County, Battle Ground Lake got 1,500 trout and Klineline Pond received 2,100.
In Cowlitz County, Horseshoe Lake got 2,400 trout, Silver Lake got 3,000, Kress Lake got 2,000 and Lake Sacajawea got 1,300.
Kress Lake also got 22 adult winter steelhead.
Angler checks from the Washington (WDFW) and Oregon (ODFW) departments of Fish and Wildlife:
Mid-Columbia — Bonneville pool, 57 boaters with three legal sturgeon kept and 161 sublegals released; 39 bank rods with 14 sublegal sturgeon released; three boaters with no walleye. (WDFW)
The Dalles pool, three boaters with no sturgeon; 11 bank rods with one sublegal sturgeon released; five boaters with three walleye kept; two bank rods with no walleye; six boaters with five wild steelhead released. (WDFW)
John Day pool, 36 boaters with four sublegal sturgeon released; 32 bank rods with no sturgeon; 18 bank rods with no steelhead; eight boaters with five walleye kept and four released. (WDFW)
Cowlitz — Three boaters with one steelhead kept; 24 bank rods with two steelhead kept. Twenty-nine winter steelhead returned in five days of operations at Cowlitz Salmon Hatchery. (WDFW)
