Oregon officials sampled a boater over the weekend with a spring chinook salmon. That’s the good news. The bad news is the two states checked 340 rods to come up with that salmon.
Another sign that it’s too early to fish for spring chinook: Test netting in the lower Columbia between about Rice Island and the Wahkiakum-Cowlitz line on Tuesday caught one chinook and two steelhead in 16 drifts. The chinook was of lower Columbia origin, while one steelhead was a hatchery fish and the other wild.
Klineline Pond was planted with 1,000 half-pound rainbows on Tuesday.
Angler checks from the Washington (WDFW) and Oregon (ODFW) departments of Fish and Wildlife:
Lower Columbia — Longview to Portland, 99 boaters with one spring chinook kept; 99 Oregon bank rods with one steelhead kept and two released; 14 boaters with no sturgeon. (ODFW)
Kalama, five boaters and 10 bank rods with no salmon or steelhead; seven boaters with two legal sturgeon kept plus nine sublegals released; two bank rods with no sturgeon. (WDFW)
Woodland, five boaters with no spring chinook or steelhead; 36 bank rods with one steelhead kept; one boater and nine bank rods with no sturgeon. (WDFW)
Warrior Rock to Kelley Point, 44 boaters with no spring chinook or steelhead; 38 bank rods with no spring chinook or steelhead; 10 boaters with three sublegal sturgeon released. (WDFW)
Davis Bar to Interstate 5 Bridge, four boaters with no salmon or steelhead. (WDFW)
Camas-Washougal, 15 boaters with six legal sturgeon kept plus two oversize and 27 sublegals released; 10 bank rods with one legal sturgeon kept plus two legal, one oversize and six sublegals released. (WDFW)
North Bonneville, two bank rods with no sturgeon. (WDFW)
Mid-Columbia — Bonneville pool, 20 boaters with three legal sturgeon kept plus 15 sublegals released; four bank rods with no sturgeon. Sturgeon retention in the reservoir now is closed. (WDFW)
The Dalles pool, seven boaters with two steelhead released; 16 bank rods with one steelhead kept and two released; five boaters with one sublegal sturgeon released; 39 bank rods with one sublegal sturgeon released; three boaters with one walleye kept. (WDFW)
John Day pool, eight boaters with four steelhead released; five bank rods with one steelhead released; 44 boaters with 15 walleye kept and three walleye released. (WDFW)
Washougal — Eleven boaters with one hatchery steelhead kept plus three hatchery and six wild steelhead released; 20 bank rods with one hatchery and one wild steelhead released. (WDFW)
Klineline Pond — Forty-five bank rods with 58 rainbow trout kept. (WDFW)
