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Monday, March 18, 2024
March 18, 2024

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Fishing report 3/30

By , Columbian Outdoors Reporter
Published:

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.

Washington sampled 352 bank and boat rods this week and found just two spring chinook, both caught by boaters in the Kalama area.

Meanwhile, there is no end in sight for the huge flows coming down the Columbia River.

The National Weather Service projects the Columbia will remain above 17 feet of the gauge at Vancouver beyond Monday (minor flood stage is 16 feet). The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers reported 1 foot of water visibility at Bonneville Dam on Wednesday.

The Willamette River in Portland has about 18 inches of visibility, so it doesn’t offer much of an alternative.

Washington and Oregon are expected to meet Wednesday to consider a spring chinook fishing extension beyond April 6.

• Kokanee continues to be hit-and-miss at Merwin Reservoir. Some trollers are finding 10-fish limits, while others are struggling to get a fish or two.

• Walleye catch rates have dropped in the Maryhill-Rufus area. Streamflows exceeding 4 miles per hour have made fishing downstream of John Day Dam difficult.

• Klineline Pond in Vancouver was stocked with 1,500 rainbow trout last week. Lake Sacajawea in Longview was stocked with 3,100 rainbow trout.

Klineline Pond will be closed April 6 though 8 for the annual Klineline Kids Fish-In. Several thousand trout will be stocked into netted areas along the shore. Only registered participants can fish in the event on April 7 and 8.

Angler sampling by the Washington (WDFW) and Oregon (ODFW) departments of Fish and Wildlife:

Lower Columbia — Downstream of Puget Island, seven boaters with no catch. (WDFW)

Cathlamet, 15 boaters and 15 bank rods with no catch. (WDFW)

Westport, Ore., to Portland, 75 boaters with no catch; 109 bank rods with one steelhead kept and one steelhead released. (ODFW)

Longview, 28 boaters and five bank rods with no catch; two boaters with no sturgeon. (WDFW)

Cowlitz River mouth, five boaters with no catch. (WDFW)

Kalama, 45 boaters with two adult spring chinook kept; four bank rods with no catch. (WDFW)

Woodland, 15 boaters and 77 bank rods with no catch. (WDFW)

Warrior Rock to Kelley Point, 55 boaters and 49 bank rods with no catch. (WDFW)

Davis Bar to Portland airport tower, 22 boaters with no catch. (WDFW)

Troutdale, Ore., 17 boaters with no catch. (ODFW)

Camas-Washougal, three boaters with no catch; one boater with no walleye. (WDFW)

North Bonneville, seven bank rods with no catch. (WDFW)

Mid-Columbia — Bonneville pool, 19 boaters with four oversize and 52 sublegal sturgeon released; 32 bank rods with two legal sturgeon kept plus 17 sublegal and one oversize sturgeon released. Sturgeon retention is closed, but catch-and-release fishing is allowed. (ODFW)

The Dalles pool, 42 boaters with 69 walleye kept and three walleye released; 14 boaters with two sublegal sturgeon released; 14 bank rods with four sublegal sturgeon released Sturgeon retention is now closed. (ODFW)

John Day pool, 61 boaters with nine walleye kept and 15 released; two boaters with two bass kept; 97 bank rods three legal sturgeon kept plus 29 sublegal and three oversize sturgeon released; 96 boaters with 12 legal sturgeon kept plus 59 sublegal, one legal and 15 oversize sturgeon released. Sturgeon retention is closed for the rest of 2017. (ODFW)

Cowlitz — One-hundred-thirty bank rods with three adult spring chinook and 19 steelhead kept plus three steelhead released; 115 boaters with two adult spring chinook and 41 steelhead kept. The area around Cowlitz Trout Hatchery has been best for steelhead. (WDFW)

For the week, 149 winter steelhead and 13 adult spring chinook returned to the fish separator at Cowlitz Salmon Hatchery.

Streamflow on Wednesday was a high 14,700 cubic feet per second at Mayfield Dam. Water visibility is 5 feet.

Kalama — Fifty-eight bank anglers with one spring chinook and one steelhead kept plus two wild steelhead released; 27 boaters with one hatchery steelhead kept. (WDFW)

Drano Lake — Four bank rods with four sublegal sturgeon released. (WDFW)

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Columbian Outdoors Reporter