Southwest Washington Fishing Reports
2002 Report Archive
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WDFW Sport Sampling Results for August 5-11, 2002
Sport Sampling Summaries - PDF Format

Salmon/Steelhead

• Cowlitz River - Counting fish released, boat anglers averaged nearly a steelhead per rod last week while bank anglers averaged one per every 6 rods. During the past week Tacoma Power's Cowlitz Salmon Hatchery separator recovered 561 summer-run steelhead, 64 spring adult chinook salmon, 17 spring chinook jacks, two cutthroat trout, one sockeye and one chum salmon. Tacoma Power employees recycled 545 summer-run steelhead and the sockeye salmon downstream to the Olequa boat launch between August 5 and August 9. Also during the week, Tacoma Power employees released 127 spring chinook adults into the upper Cowlitz River at the Day Use Park on Lake Scanewa . A total of 62 summer-run steelhead were transported to the Cowlitz Trout Hatchery for broodstock during the week. River flows at Mayfield Dam are approximately 4,190 cubic feet per second on Monday August 12. Water visibility is over fourteen feet.
• Kalama River - Generally light effort and catches. Through August 7, a total of 118 fall chinook had entered the Modrow Trap.
• Lewis River - Generally light effort and catch in the North Fork. Through August 7, over 9,000 hatchery summer run steelhead had returned to the facilities.
• Washougal River - Generally light effort. Through August 7, nearly 2,500 hatchery summer run steelhead had returned to Skamania Hatchery.
• Drano Lake - Counting fish released, boat anglers averaged nearly a steelhead per rod last week.
• White Salmon River - Boat anglers averaged about ½ steelhead per rod last week counting fish released.
• Buoy 10 - At the ports of Chinook and Ilwaco from August 9-11, a total of 1,249 boat anglers sampled had kept 269 chinook and 41 coho, an average of a salmon kept per every 4 rods. The combined Washington and Oregon catch and effort through August 11 is 13,072 angler trips and 1,528 chinook and 376 coho kept.
• Lower Columbia below Bonneville Dam - Boat and bank anglers averaged better than a steelhead kept/or released per every 4 rods based on complete and incomplete trips, respectively. A few fall chinook beginning to appear in the catch, particularly near the mouth of the Cowlitz.
• John Day Pool - Bank anglers are catching some hatchery summer run steelhead.
• Hanford Reach - Very little effort for salmonids last week and no salmon catch was observed. The section from the Highway 395 Bridge at Pasco upstream to the old Hanford townsite wooden powerline towers opens to fishing for chinook and hatchery coho beginning Friday August 16.
  

Sturgeon

• Lower Columbia below Bonneville Dam - Light effort since the fishery went to catch and release.
• John Day Pool - Slow for legal sized fish.
  

Walleye, Bass and other warmwater fish

• John Day Pool - Boat anglers averaged nearly 1.5 walleye per rod last week counting fish released. In addition, boat anglers averaged over 11 bass per rod.
  

Trout

• Mayfield Lake - Continues to produce some rainbows.
• Riffe Lake - Producing mostly landlocked coho along with some landlocked steelhead and chinook. The reservoir was reported 4.7 feet below full pool today. The boat ramps at Mossyrock, Taidnapum, and Kosmos were reported to be useable.