Fishing Reports

Fishing for Summer Steel head has been very good thus far this year. Water temperatures are a little warmer than normal so the fish have been a little finicky when they bite. They have been biting just now holding on for very long. We have been combating this with quick hook sets and it seems to be paying off! We have a few more good weeks of Summer Steelhead fishing left so don’t miss out and get out here while the getting’s good. Let me remind you all of the Fall Salmon run we are expecting, 1.6 million Chinook and nearly 1 million Coho Salmon are expected to return just over Bonneville Dam this year. These counts are not even what we will expect in the tributaries of the Columbia this year! Call or email to reserve your seats to participate in the largest salmon run on record since there has been a record! Hope to hear from you all soon!

Fishing for Spring Chinook ended with a bang this month! WDFW gave us all through the month of April to fish for the chinook and what a great time it has been! For the last 5 years boats have not been allowed to fish all the way to Bonneville Dam until this year. I will just say I sure hope they let us fish there again next year cause it was fantastic fishing! Now the summer fishing season has begun and I can honestly say the month of June and July are my favorite time of the year. Summer Chinook have started to show in good numbers in the first week of June, and there are a whole lot more to come! You can’t beat the quality and size of salmon the month of June provides! The locally named “June hogs” average 20lbs and can get up to 45lbs+. These fish have a very long journey, which makes them loaded with healthy omega 3 fatty acids which are the reason they also taste so good. Also in the month of June, and especially July, the Summer Steelhead are also making their way through the Columbia River. The same goes for the Summer Steelhead; they have a very long journey to their spawning grounds which also makes these fish very oily and delicious. One more fish to not forget is the Columbia River Sockeye. The season opens for the Sockeye on June 16th, and with high forecast numbers it should be really good fishing for a couple of weeks. Make this summer one to remember, come out and catch a lot of fish and have a great time on the Columbia River and its tributaries. There are still some fantastic dates left on my calendar for catching high numbers of salmon or steelhead. Don’t miss out on this year’s upcoming summer fishing it is going to be one for the record books! I am looking forward to hearing from you and fishing with you in the very near future!

Fishing for Spring Chinook at the Wind River and Drano has been excellent this year and remains good even now! Even better news from the fishing front is the WDFW has exteneded the season for spring chinook from May 15th to June 15th! There are plenty of fish around still to have some stellar days of chinook fishing. On June 16th our attention turns to Summer Chinook. The Summer Chinook are like the Spring Chinooks bigger brothers. Locally they are known as “June hogs” and for good reason. On average, the summer fish are much larger than the Spring Chinook. Usually we will catch one or two a day that are 25 to 35 pounds and sometimes up to 40 plus pounds! The Summer Chinook are just as good eating as the springs in my opinion, but you can get a lot more meat out of these fish. The season is set from June 16th, to June 30th, but we catch a lot before then and salmon will be open for retention! I have been booking seats rapidly for this fishery lately but I still have some really awesome dates available. Looking forward to catching fish with all of you this summer!

Fishing on the Columbia River for Spring Chinook this year has been an interesting one to say the least. Fish were in no hurry to show this year due to ever changing water conditions. Finally, around the last week in March, they started showing in good numbers. Luckily, Washington department of fish and wildlife extended the season to April 14, and then one more day on the 19th. This finally provided some excellent fishing! Now that the lower Columbia River has been closed the attention has been shifted to the Willamette River in Portland Oregon. The Willamette has been producing some great days the last couple weeks and should remain good until the middle of May. Also coming up is the Wind River and Drano Lake fishery! These are my favorite fisheries for Spring Chinook! When Bonneville fish counts go on the rise to three thousand and better, it’s time to hit the Wind or Drano. I still have some great dates available for these rivers. From the last week in April, till the last week in May, we will be catching good numbers of the highest quality spring chinook available. There will be a 2 fish limit this year at Wind River and Drano Lake! If you were lucky to find these fish in a fish market, you would pay top dollar per pound. It is definitely worth the money, to not just get fish for the freezer, but have a lot of fun catching them! This fall, if you haven’t heard is forecasted to be the largest ever on record run of Fall Chinook, (1.6 million) and near all-time record breaking run of Coho Salmon! If you ever have ever wanted to catch a lot of fish in one day, this is your year! Don’t miss out on this one! I am very excited to fish with all of you on our upcoming fisheries for salmon and steelhead this year! This is going to be one to remember!

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 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.