Sturgeon retention is open now in the Bonneville, The Dalles and John Day pools in the Columbia River Gorge, albeit, in freezing conditions.
On Sunday, Washington sampled 32 boat anglers in Bonneville pool with one legal sturgeon kept plus two legal sturgeon, one oversize sturgeon and 42 sublegals released. Thirty-two bank rods were checked with two sublegals released.
In The Dalles pool, the numbers were 18 bank rods with one legal sturgeon kept plus one oversize and five sublegals released. In John Day pool, 24 boaters were checked with two legal sturgeon kept plus three oversize and 11 sublegals released.
No bass or walleye anglers were found during Sunday’s sampling in the Columbia Gorge.
More adult steelhead have been released into Battle Ground and Horseshoe lakes. Battle Ground got 68 winter steelhead from Skamania Hatchery and Horseshoe got 30 winter steelhead from the Merwin Fish Collection Facility on the North Fork of the Lewis River.
Angler sampling from the Washington (WDFW) and Oregon (ODFW) departments of Fish and Wildlife:
Cowlitz — Fourteen boaters with one steelhead kept; 90 bank rods with one steelhead, one adult coho and one jack coho kept plus one adult coho released. (WDFW)
Last week, five winter steelhead returned to Cowlitz Salmon Hatchery in four days of collection operations. Streamflows at Mayfield Dam on Wednesday were 9,940 cubic feet per second, a typical winter amount. The water temperature is 42 degrees and visibility is 10 feet.
Coweeman — Ten bank rods with one hatchery steelhead kept. (WDFW)
Kalama — Seventy-two bank rods with two hatchery steelhead kept plus five wild steelhead and one wild coho released; 11 boaters with no catch. (WDFW)
East Fork Lewis — Fifty-one bank rods with one hatchery steelhead kept and three wild steelhead released; seven boaters with two hatchery and two wild steelhead released. (WDFW)
Streamflows on Wednesday at Heisson were 508 cubic feet per second, about half the norm for the date.
