Spring chinook fever is beginning to build, although it’s still five weeks away before the best salmon in the world arrives in significant numbers in the lower Columbia River.
The first spring chinook has been counted at Bonneville Dam. An approximately 30-inch chrome bright wild chinook was counted at 4 p.m. last Thursday. A bank angler on the lower Cowlitz River also was checked with a spring chinook.
• Smelt fishing is over for the year after last Saturday’s six hours in the lower Cowlitz.
Dipping success depended on location. The best catches came in the Lexington to Camelot area, with dippers getting 1 to 5 pounds per scoop. Upstream or downstream of Lexington to Camelot, the average was zero to 10 smelt per dip.
Lots of dippers got their 10-pound limits. Counts showed about 3,000 dippers on the river at any time.
The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife reports the catch was a mix of males and females and their conditions ranged from green to having already spawned.
• Battle Ground Lake was stocked earlier this month with 3,000 rainbow trout while Klineline Pond in Vancouver got 1,800 trout.
• Walleye fishing has been decent in The Dalles pool in the Columbia Gorge.
Angler checks from the Washington and Oregon departments of Fish and Wildlife:
Lower Columbia — Four bank rods and two boaters with no spring chinook or steelhead. (WDFW)
Westport, Ore., to Portland, eight boaters with no catch; 10 bank rods with one steelhead kept. (ODFW)
Mid-Columbia — Bonneville pool, 98 boaters with 12 legal sturgeon kept plus two oversize and 310 sublegals released; 43 bank rods with 22 sublegals released. The retention season is over, but catch-and-release is allowed.
• The Dalles pool, 29 boaters with three legal sturgeon kept plus four oversize and 50 sublegals released; 18 bank rods with one sublegal released; two boaters with seven wild steelhead released and one hatchery steelhead kept; 27 boaters with 39 walleye kept; one bank rods with three walleye kept. (WDFW)
• John Day pool, 48 boaters with one legal sturgeon kept plus two oversize and six sublegals released; 12 bank rods with no sturgeon; five boaters with one steelhead released; 41 boaters with 17 walleye kept and 19 released. (WDFW)
Cowlitz — Thirty-one bank rods with one spring chinook and two winter steelhead kept plus one steelhead released; four boaters with one winter steelhead kept. (WDFW)
Kalama — Twelve boaters with three hatchery steelhead kept and two wild steelhead released; 46 bank rods with four hatchery steelhead kept and 11 wild steelhead released. (WDFW)
Coweeman — Twelve bank rods with four wild steelhead released. (WDFW)
East Fork Lewis — Thirty-two bank rods with two wild steelhead and two whitefish released. (WDFW)
