Hard-core spring chinook anglers have started their salmon quest in the lower Columbia, although it’s at least a month too early.
A flight on Saturday counted seven boats and 27 bank rods between Interstate 5 and the coast. The water temperature at Bonneville Dam is 36.1 degrees.
Sturgeon angling remains slow in the Bonneville pool.
Klineline Pond at Salmon Creek Park has been stocked with 1,500 rainbow trout, while Horseshoe Lake at Woodland got 75 large broodstock rainbow.
Angler checks from the Washington (WDFW) and Oregon (ODFW) departments of Fish and Wildlife:
Lower Columbia — Westport, Ore., to Portland, 16 boaters with no spring chinook; 21 bank rods with no spring chinook. (ODFW)
Mid-Columbia — Bonneville pool, 13 boaters with two legal and 52 sublegal sturgeon released. (ODFW)
• The Dalles, pool, two bank rods with four walleye kept; five boaters with no walleye; five boaters with nine sublegal and one oversize sturgeon released; two bank rods with two sublegal sturgeon released; three boaters with two steelhead kept plus four steelhead released; four bank rods with no steelhead. (ODFW)
• John Day pool, 15 boaters with 11 walleye kept; three boaters and four bank rods with no sturgeon; four boaters with one steelhead released. (ODFW)
Cowlitz — Eight boat and 51 bank rods with no winter steelhead. Streamflow was a moderate 6,370 cubic feet per second Wednesday. Water temperature is 41 degrees. (WDFW)
Coweeman — Five bank rods with one wild steelhead released. (WDFW)
Kalama — Six boaters with one hatchery steelhead kept; 27 bank rods with no winter steelhead. (WDFW)
East Fork Lewis — Twenty bank rods with no catch. Streamflow at Heisson on Wednesday afternoon was 1,660 cubic feet per second, a bit high, but fishable.
