The first spring chinook of the season has been counted at Bonneville Dam, but before letting salmon fever take over know this: The lower Columbia is cold, somewhat dirty, high and has occasional large logs floating downstream.
Officials noted that the fish had a white chin, which is like a lower Columbia chinook, rather than the black chin typical of an upriver stock. It was counted on Saturday.
Water visibility at Bonneville Dam is 3 feet, according to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The flow is up to 230,000 cubic feet per second and the temperature is 36 degrees at Bonneville.
In the lower Willamette River, water clarity at the Morrison Bridge in Portland is only about a foot.
A half dozen boats were counted chasing spring chinook on Saturday and about a dozen bank rods tallied on each side of the Columbia.
Battle Ground Lake has been stocked with almost 3,000 chunky rainbow trout plus 75 surplus brood stock trout. Klineline Pond got 1,500 rainbow trout.
Lots of sea lions are reported on the docks at Rainier, Ore., likely a sign there are smelt in the river. Smelt have been in the Grays and Lewis rivers already, but Washington only allows sport-dipping seasons in the Cowlitz. The earliest possible dipping day is Feb. 25 and that season has not been adopted.
Angler sampling by the Washington (WDFW) and Oregon (ODFW) departments of Fish and Wildlife:
Lower Columbia — Westport, Ore., to Portland, three bank rods and two boaters with no spring chinook or steelhead. (ODFW)
Mid-Columbia — The Dalles pool, 12 boaters with nine walleye kept and one released; four bank rods with one legal sturgeon kept and one sublegal released; 13 boaters with 21 sublegal and one oversize sturgeon released; four bank rods with no steelhead. (ODFW)
John Day pool, 33 boaters with five walleye kept and 23 walleye released; 28 boaters with four sublegal and one oversize sturgeon released; 21 bank rods with no sturgeon; two bank rods with no steelhead. (ODFW)
Cowlitz — Two boaters with no catch; 24 bank rods with one steelhead kept. (WDFW)
