Casey Kelly

Fishing for Spring Chinook has been fantastic so far this season!  For the last week in March, fishing has went from decent to epic fishing in just a few days!  We have been averaging 10-15 opportunities a day, and things are looking promising for April and May on the Columbia and it’s tributaries.  Spring Chinook are on the top of the list for best fish to eat.  These fish cost 32-36 dollars a pound in specialty seafood stores and are not easy to come by.  Most of these fish get bought up as soon as their available. It’s that time of year again to get out and enjoy spring,  and catch some of the best fish on the planet! Their are still some great dates left,  so come get some before it’s over.

Finally we are starting to see the beginning of the mega run of steelhead on the Cowlitz River this year! This is such a great fishery to catch high numbers of steelhead all the way through march! A lot of the fish we have seen this year have been on average much larger than normal; this will be the year to get the trophy steelhead that everyone wishes to catch! I still have great dates available for the Cowlitz but don’t wait too long cause the very best dates are starting to go. After the steelhead run we will shift gears to the world famous Columbia River Spring Chinook run! Run projections are very strong again this year on the Columbia, Willamette, Wind, Drano, and especially the Cowlitz River! DO NOT miss out on the great Spring Chinook fishing we will have again this year. Those fish are the most prized of any other salmon in the world! We are so excited to see old faces and meet new ones in the upcoming fishing season! See you soon!

Fishing for winter steelhead has been decent the past few weeks on the tributaries of the Columbia River. December’s heavy rains certainly put a damper on water conditions making fishing a bit more challenging than normal. The hatchery Winter Steelhead will slow down a bit from the last week in Jan until the first week in Feb. Fishing will remain good though until then. After the first week in Feb we will start seeing hatchery fish moving back into the Cowlitz River in huge numbers! The Cowlitz Winter Steelhead fishery is the best in the NW and is insane fishing until mid-March! Looking forward to fishing with all of you in the next few weeks!

Fishing for winter steelhead was fairly good before the recent record rain that SW Washington has had for the past two weeks. Now, the weather seems to be cooperating and the rivers are coming back into shape! Winter Steelhead fishing is commonly the most exciting fishing of the year due to their ability to sky out of the water and take big runs after hooking them. We fish with light tackle for these fish making the battle even better! Fishing will be great for steelhead clear into late March! A fishing adventure makes for a great gift for your loved ones, and gift certificates are available for future fishing dates. You will be the Christmas hero!   I assure you! I would like to thank everyone who joined us this year for the great fishing we had, and look forward to seeing you in the future! Have a Merry Christmas and a happy New Year!

Fall Chinook fishing on the Columbia River ended with an incredible bang! Previous records of fish caught, and numbers of chinook passing over Bonneville Dam (1,034,129) were crushed in the month of October! Catch rates in October were over 6,300 fish which is 4,600 more than any other October on record. Also, the total number caught from August 1^st to October 31^st was 41,886, which beat the last record kept from 1967. The Fall Chinook run sizes are continuously growing larger every year, due to habitat and stream restoration along with large smolt plants in the upper Columbia River. We are very excited for the future of the Fall Chinook fisheries! We have now switched gears to the tributaries of the Columbia, and fishing remains strong. We are starting to see a few Winter Chinook and Coho Salmon in the rivers already, and are anticipating another strong return of Winter Chinook for 15/16! These fish are known to be larger than your average chinook caught throughout fall and fight very hard! There is still fantastic fishing to be had through December for chinook, and after a small pause we will start catching high numbers of Winter Steelhead in Feb- Apr! For more up to date pictures and info, please like the page nw columbia fishing adventures llc. See you soon!

Fishing on the Columbia River has remained very good through the first week in October! We have been limiting out on beautiful bright Fall Chinook nearly every day for the past 3 weeks! What a great fall season it’s been! There have been over 1.2 million Fall Chinook that have passed over Bonneville Dam, and the numbers are still remaining strong! We will start seeing the B run Coho start to enter into the tribuataries of the Columbia later in the month, and if it’s anything like last year it will be major carnage once again! Get out fishing before the fish are gone!

Fishing on the Columbia River is red hot right now! Currently the limit is 2 chinooks which may be either hatchery or native. We have been averaging 10-30 hook ups a day and it should stay that way through mid-October! After that we will be moving into the tributaries of the Columbia to target Coho salmon and Fall Chinook!   I have some great dates available, so get hooked up on the hottest action of the year!

Now that the B10 fishery is over and done, we have moved inland to intercept the Fall Chinook and Coho in the Woodland and Longview Washington area. We will be anchoring in special spots on the Columbia River for a couple weeks catching high numbers of fish with what are known as “wobblers”. “Wobblers” are a thin piece of metal with vibrant colors painted on them that swim in a 10oclock to 2oclock motion making fish very angry when travelling near them. Fish bite these “wobblers” with such aggression that the fishing rod goes down extremely hard with line peeling of the reel in no time! This is a great fishery to kick back and enjoy the scenery while watching your rod get bit often throughout the day! I still have availability for this great fishery on the Columbia River. We will then move into the tributaries of the Columbia River with a more “hands on” approach. “Hover fishing” is when everyone has a rod in their hand and finds the bottom with the appropriate amount of lead attached to the fishing poles. We will be using different types of bait for this type of fishing, although the predominate bait will be salmon eggs. Having the right salmon eggs and scents is crucial to the success of fishing in the tributaries.   I’m excited to meet all that will be fishing with me for the remainder of the year and see all the familiar faces again this fall.  Hope to see you soon!

The Fall Chinook are in! Fishing in Astoria Oregon at buoy 10 has been unreal this year! The great news is that we have another three months of awesome fishing for the Fall Salmon in the Columbia River and its tributaries. We will be moving inland to our great fishing spots on the Columbia starting on Sep 6^th and then into the tributaries around the 20^th of September. The Chinook salmon are running large this year in awesome numbers, so don’t miss out on the chance to catch the fish of a life time!

The Buoy 10 fishery is off to a great start! Catch rates have been extremely high for the first part of August, which was a welcomed surprise by the many anglers who fish this area. There have been limits of kings caught nearly every day in the first two weeks of August, and is only expected to get way better as we head toward the end of the month! Once the fish are inland, we will start targeting them near the cold water tributaries of the Columbia River where they are sure to congregate before heading farther up river. Fall Salmon season last clear into November with tons of opportunity to catch high numbers of fish. Don’t miss out on the fall run of Kings and Coho Salmon this year; after all it is the third largest run in history!