Cheer up, at least it’s February now. Somebody, somewhere, will catch a spring chinook this month, plus walleye fishing in the Columbia Gorge should improve in a few weeks once the weather breaks.
Sturgeon catches remain dismal in the Bonneville pool. Through Sunday, only 16 fish had been retained. The water temperature is 35.5 degrees.
Trout and surplus steelhead have been planted in three lakes.
Horseshoe Lake at Woodland got 18 surplus steelhead from the North Fork of the Lewis River. Kress Lake got 2,000 rainbow trout plus 35 surplus steelhead from the Kalama River.
Rowland Lake in Klickitat County was stocked with 112 large broodstock trout.
Angler sampling by the Washington (WDFW) and Oregon (ODFW) departments of Fish and Wildlife:
Mid-Columbia — Bonneville pool, 18 boaters with two legal sturgeon kept plus two oversize and 46 sublegal sturgeon released; six bank rods with no sturgeon. (ODFW)
• The Dalles pool, 16 boaters with one oversize and one sublegal sturgeon released; three bank rods with one legal sturgeon kept and four sublegals released; seven boaters with one walleye released; three boaters with one steelhead kept and two released. (ODFW)
• John Day pool, 23 boaters with seven sublegal sturgeon released; 10 bank rods with no catch; three bank rods and two boaters with no steelhead; 18 boaters with 17 walleye kept and six released. (ODFW)
Cowlitz — Twenty-eight bank rods with two steelhead kept; two boaters with no catch. Eleven steelhead returned to Cowlitz Salmon Hatchery last week. The water temperature is at 42.1 degrees and visibility is 7 feet. (WDFW)
Coweeman — Seventeen bank rods with one hatchery and four wild steelhead released. (WDFW)
Kalama — Five boaters with no catch; 37 bank rods with two wild steelhead released and one hatchery coho kept. (WDFW)
East Fork Lewis — Thirty-two boaters with two wild steelhead released. (WDFW)
