Cowlitz River
- Steelhead are being caught throughout the river; some spring chinook
are being caught around the trout hatchery.
Last week, Tacoma
Power recovered 92 winter-run steelhead adults at the Cowlitz Salmon
Hatchery separator during five days of operations.
During the week
Tacoma Power employees released seven radio-tagged winter-run steelhead
into the Cispus River, seven radio-tagged steelhead into the upper Cowlitz
River at the Franklin Bridge in Packwood, Washington, a total of 45
steelhead adults into Lake Scanewa at the Day Use Site, and five winter-run
steelhead into the Tilton River at Gust Backstrom Park in Morton, Washington.
River flows at Mayfield
Dam are approximately at 5,070 cubic feet per second on Monday, April
7. Water visibility is over eleven feet.
Kalama River
- Light effort. Some spring reported being caught.
Lewis River -
Some steelhead are being caught from the mainstem; light effort and
catch in the North Fork. The first two spring chinook of the year were
found in the Merwin Dam trap last week.
Wind River -
1 boat found here last Saturday (April 5); 2 on Sunday. No anglers were
sampled.
Drano Lake -
10 boats were counted here last Saturday and Sunday. A couple spring
chinook were reported caught yesterday (Sunday April 6).
Klickitat River
- No effort was observed on the Saturday April 5 opener. Open Mondays,
Wednesdays, and Saturdays only.
Lower Columbia
below Bonneville Dam - Catch and effort remains higher than the
past few years.
For the first six
days of April, we sampled 3,287 salmonid anglers (including 1,134 private
boats and 1 charter) with 723 adult, 2 jack spring chinook and 3 steelhead.
Boat anglers averaged an adult chinook kept/released per every 4.2 rods
while bank anglers averaged one per every 8.7 rods based on mainly completed
and incomplete trips, respectively. Best success for both boat and bank
anglers was just below Bonneville Dam.
629 (87%) of the
adult chinook caught were kept. 562 (95%) of the 589 fish sampled were
upriver stock based on Visual Stock Identification.
In comparison, boat
anglers during the same time last year averaged an adult chinook per
every 8.8 rods. In 2006 boat anglers averaged a chinook kept/released
per every 7 rods, one per every 6.4 rods in 2005, and one per every
3.2 rods in 2004.
During the Thursday
April 3 flight from Bonneville Dam downstream to Buoy 10, nearly 1,400
boats and 200 WA and 300 OR salmonid bank anglers were counted. 1,051
boats and 149 WA and 74 OR bank anglers were counted from Hayden Island
upstream during the Saturday April 5 flight.
In comparison, 525
boats and 94 WA and 258 OR bank anglers were counted during the Wednesday
April 3, 2007 flight. During the Sunday flights on April 1 and 8 (Easter),
757 and 553 boats were counted, respectively. Note: Sunday counts are
typically less than Saturdays. In addition, fewer boats may be found
on Easter.
During the same
period in 2006, 641 boats were counted on Wednesday April 5 and 806
Sunday April 9. On Saturday April 9, 2005 nearly 1,700 boats were counted.
The mainstem Columbia
from the Hayden Island west powerlines downstream is now closed to fishing
for salmon, steelhead, and shad. It's scheduled to reopen for steelhead
and shad beginning May 16. The summer chinook season is scheduled for
June. Stay tuned for details on this year's summer chinook fishery.
Bonneville Pool
- The few bank anglers sampled had no catch.
Ringold -
(from Paul Hoffarth WDFW Biologist - Yakima) - For the month of March,
an estimated 581 steelhead were caught in the Ringold fishery (Hwy 395
to old Hanford town site). Of these, 274 were retained. Catch and harvest
were similar to 2007 and well above the catch in 2005-06. For the season,
1,947 steelhead have been caught (1,236 Adipose + right ventral fin
clipped, 468 Adipose only clipped, and 244 wild) and 1,178 fish were
retained.
WDFW staff interviewed
154 anglers in March (22% of the effort). Angler activity picked up
in March from winter lows. Harvest rates picked up considerably during
the past month as is typical in March and April. Angers caught 1 steelhead
for every 4 hours of angling in March. Six wild steelhead were reported
caught and released in March.
Very low numbers
of steelhead have returned to the Ringold Springs Rearing Facility in
2007-08 even though harvest has been at or above normal. No steelhead
have been collected and transported from the Ringold trap this year.
The Ringold area
(Highway 395 Bridge to old Hanford Townsite wooden powerline towers)
steelhead fishery closed on March 31. Bank anglers will be permitted
to fish for steelhead through April 15 but only along the shoreline
located near the Ringold Springs Hatchery. The area open is from the
WDFW marker ¼ mile downstream of the Ringold irrigation wasteway
outlet to the marker ½ mile upstream of Spring Creek.
Klineline Pond
- Poor fishing due to heavy algae bloom and lack of a fish plant
last week. However, the broodstock rainbow sampled weighed 6.5 pounds.
Effective April
10 at 12:01 a.m., the entire pond will be closed to public fishing.
The pond will be closed to allow a special group of participants for
the Fishing Kid’s event. The pond will reopen at 6:00 p.m., Saturday,
April 12.
Silver Lake near
Castle Rock - Planted with 3,276 catchable size rainbows March 31.
Horseshoe Lake
in Woodland - Planted with 2,536 catchable size rainbows April 2.
The seasonal releases
of catchable hatchery rainbow trout in the Cowlitz River basin began
last week with the release of about 3,500 trout into Swofford Pond.
