Casey Kelly

Fishing for Spring Chinook is starting to pick up on the Columbia River finally! Lately we have been fishing for sturgeon on the Columbia River, and kokanee (land locked sockeye) on Merwin Lake with great success! Sturgeon fishing is catch and release only as of now, but it sure has been fun catching keeper size and a few oversized sturgeon by the dozens. Sturgeon fishing will remain fantastic for the rest of the year no doubt. At Merwin Lake the kokanee have been biting very well with averages of 30 to 50 fish per trip. The Kokanee are one of the tastiest fish that we have here in the PNW. Although not very large, a limit of ten per person adds up quickly. This is a great fishery to get your children or grandchildren hooked on fishing due to the high catch rates. The Spring Chinook are starting to show up slowly but when they start coming, they come in large groups. I still have some a few prime days left on my calendar to get out and catch one of these world renowned fish. If you don’t get the chance to get out on the Columbia River before the 7th of April, fear not, the Willamette River will be pumping them out in great numbers all through the month and into May. When the Bonneville dam counts start to rapidly climb around the beginning of May, we will start fishing the Wind River and Drano Lake in the Columbia River Gorge. I am very excited for the long upcoming season of Spring Chinook fishing! It is going to be a stellar year for catching them! As of now I still have March 28th and 29th as well as April 2nd open. These are awesome dates to fish, so get them while you can. I’m looking forward to fishing with all of you!

The time we’ve all been waiting for all year is nearly here! Columbia River Spring Chinook! In 2014, the upriver Columbia River spring chinook prediction is 308,000 fish! Last years forecast of 141,400 and an actual return of 123,100 still produced a lot of great fishing. If it all pans out it will be the fifth-largest return since 1980! If you like to eat one of the best eating fish in the world, these are your fish. Spring Chinook do not spawn for up to 8 months after they arrive to their home rivers, which makes their body’s fat content much higher due to the fact that they use that fat for their long journey and as they begin to spawn. That fat is what makes these fish so soft, delicious, and loaded in healthy omega 3! If you can find Spring Chinook in a specialty seafood market, you will be paying $33 to $36 a pound for it. Makes you want to go out and catch a 30 pounder doesn’t it? 🙂 I still have some very prime dates available for this awesome fishery, don’t wait too long, the best two weeks will start to fill up very soon. In other exciting news, the Summer Chinook forecast is the same as last years at 75,000 fish. That doesn’t sound like a whole lot, but these fish tend to bite better because of the warmer water in June. Oh if you haven’t heard there is a forecast of 980,000 Coho salmon, and 1.6 million Fall Chinook to return to the Columbia River this year! That is insanity! Fishing at Buoy 10 this year in the month of Aug and Sep will be the best fishing anyone has seen under the age of about 80! I cannot begin to tell you how good fishing will be this fall! Let’s get out and catch some fish! Hope to hear from you soon.

Fishing for Winter Steelhead is heating up in a big way on the Cowlitz River in recent days! This is a very fun fishery due to the unpredictable actions of steelhead after they get hooked. One second they are screaming line off the fishing reel, and the next they are jumping high out of the water! Fishing for steelhead will be very good until the first week in April, and possibly beyond. Also the world famous Spring Chinook fishery will be getting off to a hot start a little earlier this year due to warmer and lower water than normal. We are expecting these fish to start showing strong in the last week in March with a strong run forecasted to return! The Spring Chinook are the most sought after fish the Pacific Northwest has to offer! Prices on these fish in (specialty seafood markets only) will reach as high as 35 dollars per pound! It is well worth the cost of a fishing trip to catch Spring Chinook as an average fish of 15 pounds would be worth nearly 500 dollars! They cost so much because they are the best eating salmon you can catch in the world next to Summer Chinook, Summer Steelhead and Sockeye Salmon. Fishing for Spring Chinook will yield high catch rates clear till the end of May. This long season ensures people with busy schedules a chance to get out and catch them! We are currently booking for Winter Steelhead and Spring Chinook, don’t miss out on these great fishing opportunities!

Fishing for Chinook ended with a bang in 2013! Catching the Winter Chinook in good numbers until late December made for an easy transition period from salmon to steelhead this year. Hatchery run Winter Steelhead were also available in good numbers through the first week of Jan this year, which has been better than the past couple of years on that specie. Now are focus is shifting towards the exciting fishery of native winter steelhead, kokanee, (land locked sockeye) and the almighty Spring Chinook. The Native steelhead will be around in good numbers by the second week of Feb, and will be fantastic until the middle of Mar. The native steelheads are not open for retention, but I can tell you that these fish are one of the most exciting fish there is to catch and are quite majestic. If table fare is what you desire than I would suggest getting out on a Lake Merwin Kokanee adventure. These fish are one of the tastiest out there, and the limit on them is 10 fish per person. We will be fishing for Winter Steelhead and Kokanee till the middle of March so call soon if any of those fisheries interest you. After that it will be onto the prized Spring Chinook, which have been forecasted at 308,000 fish to enter the Columbia River this year. Good river conditions this year should make catching the Spring Chinook much easier than the past few high water years we have had. The season is set to close on April 7th this year for the Spring Chinook. I still have a few prime dates left, so if your wanting to go don’t wait they won’t last too long. Looking forward to fishing with you!

Fishing through the month of October was one for the record books! Now that the month is nearly over, fishing is starting to slow down a bit. We are still catching 5 to 10 fish a day, and on a normal year that would be a great day but this year it is considered “slowing down”. I project fishing to really slow down around the 1st week in November, and then quickly ramp back up for the Winter Chinook. These fish will start showing in good numbers around the second week of Nov. If the Winter Chinook show up in not even half the numbers that the fall fish did, it will be one heck of a stellar Winter Chinook fishery this year! Don’t let the cooler weather detour you from getting out and catching some of the awesome winter run of Chinook in the very near future. I always carry a 45,000 BTU heater during the winter months, which is a big enough propane heater to melt a polar ice cap, so don’t worry about being miserable out on the water. Feel free to call or email anytime to book a day of great Winter Salmon fishing. Hope to see you soon.

Fishing for Fall Chinook continues to be incredible this year! Starting on Oct 1st we’ve been able to start keeping non hatchery Chinook on most of the Columbia River tributaries. Now that the Sep fish have passed through, the Oct fish are in the waters in huge numbers. Columbia River Fishing guides are in heaven this year catching easy limits for all their clients day after day. There are so many more fish yet to come, and I’m very much looking forward to getting out with you and having some fantastic days of fishing!

As of September 30th 2013 over one million Fall Chinook have passed through Bonneville Dam! Now that the Columbia River has slowed down, we have focused our attention on its tributaries. Fishing for Fall Chinook was absolutely insane on the Columbia River this year, and it is starting to show that the Columbia is not only river that is getting massive runs of Chinook this year. Customer after customer, have had the joy of fighting fish till their arms are dead so far this month! Chrome bright Chinook are in the tributaries of the Columbia in such large numbers that it’s been easy to have 20 to 30 fish days for nearly a month! This year, the date to which we can keep native fish has been bumped up to Oct 1st from Sep 12th from previous years. Being able to catch hatcheries has been quite the challenge so far this month. Weeding through a ton of native fish to get to keep hatchery Chinook has been the norm so far for the month of Sep, but we have been successful in doing so. This is definitely the year to get in on the best Salmon fishing many have ever seen. Things are looking up for future runs of our Fall Chinook on the Columbia River and its tributaries. If you are interested in fishing for these fish, it is strongly advised to book well in advance for next year’s fish. Anytime between Aug 15th through Dec 10th are prime dates for this fishery.

Fishing on the Columbia River thus far has been phenomenal to say the least! The projected run of Fall Chinook for 2013 was estimated at 650,000 Chinook over Bonneville Dam. So far, as of the 11th of September 2013 there are 707,500 over the dam! Now the run size has been upgraded to nearly a million fish to return to the Columbia River! Fishing the tributaries of the Columbia has also been absolutely stellar fishing as well. The Cowlitz River, Lewis River, Klickitat and others have more Chinook in them the most fisherman have ever seen. As of the 12th the Columbia is scheduled to close for Chinook fishing, but there are already talks of a reopener coming very soon! There is so much more great fishing yet to come all through the month of September, October, and November. This year has been a Columbia River Fishing guide’s dreams come true! Don’t miss out on the best fishing there has been in the past decade at least. I still have some very good dates available so call or email soon to reserve your seats.

Fishing for Steelhead on the Columbia River has been fantastic through the whole month of July and continues to be great into the second week of August! The main focus is definitely shifted onto the Fall Chinook now though. An early start catching these Fall Kings has made people very excited, and now this fishery is in full swing at Buoy 10. Fishing at Buoy 10 has been the best fishing Columbia River fishing guides and other fisherman alike have seen in years! There are unbelievable amounts of fish in the river right now! Now that Buoy 10 has been consistently red hot for the last two weeks, Chinook are starting to enter the lower Columbia River in good numbers and fishing is picking up at the mouth of the Cowlitz River and above. We are still targeting steelhead and then moving spots to Chinook fish. Opportunity for catching both Summer Steelhead and a Chinook is very high right now, and should remain until the end of Aug. I still have some fantastic dates left for the end of the August and September. With the amount of fish coming through and good tides it will be insane fishing for the next two months! If there were a year to get out and catch a lot of big fish this is it!

Fishing for Summer Steelhead is still going strong on the Columbia River! So far there are only 75,000 of the 339,000 Summer Steelhead projected over Bonneville Dam. These numbers will still provide about another three weeks of great fishing yet to come! By the second week of August we will start seeing the Fall run of Chinook start to migrate up the Columbia. The prediction of the return of the Fall Chinook is astronomical! If there was ever a time to catch high numbers of big Chinook this year is it! We will be fishing in the Columbia River until mid-September and then transition into its tributaries after that until mid-October. There are still plenty of dates open in Sep and October so book a trip and don’t miss out on a once in a decade experience catching a lot of the famously big Fall Chinook.