Saturday is sturgeon fishing day in Southwest Washington with the estuary and Bonneville pool both open for retention.
Sturgeon fishing downstream of the Wauna power lines opened Monday, with Wednesday the second of the six scheduled days of retention.
Monday’s numbers from the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife were 431 boat rods with 92 legal sturgeon kept plus 106 sublegals, 28 legals and 73 oversize released.
It was crowded Monday. Fishing effort based on trailer counts was more than 500 boats, not including charters.
The legal size is between 44 and 50 inches fork length. The daily limit is one fish and the annual limit is two sturgeon. Fish caught in the winter portion of the Bonneville pool season count toward the annual limit.
Sturgeon fishing in the estuary is prohibited after 2 p.m., including catch and release.
Bonneville pool will be open Saturday only. The sturgeon slot for retention is 38 inches to 54 inches fork length. A second day of fishing may be added depending on catch.
Sturgeon angling in Bonneville pool on Saturday is closed from The Dalles Dam for 1.8 miles downstream to a line from the upstream dock at the Port of The Dalles boat ramp to a marker straight across on the Washington shore.
• Swift Reservoir opened Saturday for trout.
The Department of Fish and Wildlife sampled 51 rods with 117 rainbow trout, three coho and a sucker kept plus 38 rainbow and one coho released.
Most boaters reported catching their limits in about two hours. Several carryover trout from 2016 were caught. They were about 16 inches.
At Swift power canal, 15 bank rods with seven rainbow trout kept.
• Yale Reservoir got lots of action on Saturday’s Fallen Outdoors event. Thirty-eight boats caught 818 kokanee plus some trout. (WDFW)
• The best catches in the northern pikeminnow sport reward program last week were at Bingen (19.6 per trip), The Dalles (14.8) and Washougal (10.7)
Angler sampling by the Washington (WDFW) and Oregon (ODFW) departments of Fish and Wildlife:
Lower Columbia — Columbia Gorge (downstream of Bonneville Dam), nine boaters with 230 shad kept; 121 Oregon bank rods with 550 shad kept. (ODFW)
Mid-Columbia — Bonneville pool, 135 bank rods with 1,296 shad kept and 586 released. (ODFW)
The Dalles pool, 77 rods with 293 walleye kept and 24 released. (ODFW)
John Day pool, 108 boaters with 220 walleye kept and 69 released. (ODFW)
Cowlitz — Forty-six boat rods with seven adult chinook, one jack chinook and four steelhead kept plus one cutthroat trout released. (WDFW)
Streamflow at Mayfield Dam is at 12,300 cubic feet per second with water visibility at 8 feet.
The water temperature is 47 degrees.
Kalama — Eight bank rods with no catch; 18 boaters with two adult spring chinook kept. (WDFW)
Lewis — Four boaters with one adult spring chinook kept. (WDFW)
North Fork Lewis — Eight bank rods with one adult spring chinook kept; five boaters with four adult and five jack spring chinook kept. (WDFW)
Wind — At the mouth, seven bank rods with two adult spring chinook kept; 36 boaters with one adult chinook kept. (WDFW)
Drano Lake — One-hundred-seventy-one boat rods with 16 adult and two jack chinook kept and one adult chinook released. (WDFW)
Klickitat — Twenty-two bank rods with 16 adult and one jack spring chinook kept plus five adult chinook released. (WDFW)
Lower Willamette — Downstream of St. Johns Bridge including Multnomah Channel, 611 anglers with 70 spring chinook kept and 16 released. (ODFW)
