Although the Columbia River is too high and too muddy for sport fishing, test fishing with tangle nets shows there are spring chinook around.
Seventeen drifts on Sunday in the lower river captured 53 spring chinook and 12 steelhead, according to the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife.
Seventy-four percent of the spring chinook were of upper Columbia origin and 87 percent were hatchery fish. Five of the 12 steelhead were hatchery fish.
The test netting is done in commercial fishing zones Nos. 2 and 3, which are Wahkiakum and Cowlitz counties.