Fishing Reports

Spring Chinook fishing has now came to an end, but it was definitely another season to remember!   Now we are switching gears and starting to target Summer Steelhead, walleye and shad.  This month, I am running a shad special to get more kids out to enjoy the hot action that shad fishing is. From May 20^th to June 5^th we are doing $100 a person shad trip on the Columbia River! Shad are hard fighting fish that range from one to four pounds. Most days the action is nonstop for these awesome little fighters!  This is a great fishery to get kids (and adults) hooked on fishing!   In June, we will start catching Summer Chinook! This is probably my favorite fishery of the year! Summer Chinook are big, and also one of the best eating fish the Columbia River has to offer. During the Summer Chinook season we are also hooking a few Summer Steelhead and sockeye per day as well! June and July truly are great fishing months! I still have some really great dates in June and beginning of July for what are locally known as “June Hogs”. Get in touch soon, the upcoming summer fishing season is creeping up fast!

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!