WDFW Sport Sampling Results:
April 10-16, 2006

Latest Southwest Washington Sport Sampling Summaries [PDF Format]

Salmon/Steelhead -

Cowlitz River - Spring chinook are being caught at the barrier dam and steelhead from Mission Bar to Blue Creek. The Cowlitz has become turbid below the mouth of the Toutle.

During the past week Tacoma Power’s Cowlitz Salmon Hatchery separator recovered 247 adult steelhead and 109 adult spring chinook salmon during five days of separator operations. Tacoma Power employees released 112 adult steelhead and 63 spring chinook adults into the upper Cowlitz River at the Day Use Park on Lake Scanewa. In addition, they released seven steelhead into the Tilton River at Gust Backstrom Park in Morton, Washington.

River flows at Mayfield Dam are approximately 5,110 cubic feet per second on Monday, April 17. Water visibility is over eight feet.

Kalama River - Moderate to high flow levels for boat and bank anglers.

More wild winter steelhead continue to be handled the past two weeks along with a handful of fresh summer-run steelhead at Kalama Falls Hatchery (KFH). Still no spring Chinook have been handled at KFH. Fishing has been hit and miss for Springers and only a few hatchery summer steelhead have been angled thus far in the Kalama, a slow start indeed by Kalama standards, maybe due to colder than average water temperature.

• For the week of 4/3- 103 wild winter steelhead were passed upstream of KFH and 24 hatchery winter brood steelhead were recycled to the lower river (Camp Kalama).
• For the week of 4/10- 122 wild winter steelhead were passed upstream of KFH and 26 hatchery winter brood steelhead were recycled to the lower river (Camp Kalama).
• For the week of 4/17- 90 wild winter steelhead were passed upstream of KFH and 15 fresh and 11 "recycled" hatchery winter brood steelhead were planted into Kress Lake.

  To date 1,100 wild winter steelhead have been passed upstream of KFH!!!

  Catch and release on all wild fish and All Fish above KFH + selective gear regulations.

  Boaters Beware of Floating Screw Trap at KFH boat take out- Please get out of craft and walk it past the trap.

Lewis River - Some spring chinook are being caught near the salmon hatchery. The first spring chinook of the year returned to the Merwin Dam trap in early April.

Wind, White Salmon, and Klickitat rivers and Drano Lake - Effort is light with no catch observed. The bench at the mouth of the White Salmon was partially submerged by high Bonneville Pool levels Sunday morning.

Lower Columbia from the I-5 Bridge downstream - From April 10-13, we sampled 1,230 salmonid anglers (including 510 boats) with 158 chinook and 4 steelhead. Boat anglers averaged a chinook kept/released per every 7.2 rods while bank anglers averaged one per every 15.4 rods. Cathlamet boat anglers had the highest catch rates, a chinook per every 4.3 rods.

81.7% of the chinook caught were kept. 74.6% of the fish kept were upriver stock based on Visual Stock Identification.

Fishing for hatchery steelhead and hatchery chinook jacks from the Rocky Point/Tongue Point line upstream to the I-5 Bridge is scheduled to re-open on May 16. Shad angling from Bonneville Dam downstream will also re-open May 16.

Adult spring chinook counts at Bonneville Dam are now the lowest on record. Through April 16, a total of 205 fish have been counted. 2005 was the previous record low, 851 fish through the same date.

Bonneville Pool - No salmonid effort was observed.

John Day Pool - Bank anglers are catching some steelhead.

Ringold - The steelhead fishery began on Oct 1, 2005 and continued through April 15, 2006. Fishery was "bank only" from April 1 to April 15 to reduce impacts to ESA Listed spring chinook.

An estimated 1,527 steelhead were caught (including 84 wild steelhead) and 1,069 steelhead were harvested. Catch and harvest was less than in the prior two years ( Catch 2004-05: 2,349; Catch 2003-04: 4,269). Composition of the catch was 81.2% Ad-Right Ventral fin clips (Ringold), 13.3% Ad clipped only, and 5.5% wild based on fin clips. The presence of several Passive Integrated Transponder (PIT tags - Ringold releases) in Ad clipped only steelhead suggest that many of the Ad clipped only steelhead were also Ringold origin fish.

Sturgeon -

Lower Columbia below Bonneville Dam - Boat anglers are catching some legals in the Longview area. In March, an estimated 3,000 angler trips produced a catch of <35 legals. It was the second lowest catch for the month since creel sampling began in 1977 (March 2005 is the record with 16 fish).

Bonneville Pool - Bank anglers are catching some legals.

John Day Pool - Bank and boat anglers are catching some legals.

Walleye and Bass -

Bonneville Pool - Boat anglers are catching some walleye. No bass were observed caught.

John Day Pool - Including fish released, boat anglers averaged ½ walleye and nearly 3 bass per rod.

Trout -

Year round waters recently planted with trout:

• Mayfield Lake - 5,975 catchable size rainbows April 7
• Swofford Pond - 4,025 catchable size rainbows April 12
• Lacamas Lake in Camas - 4,500 rainbows and 14,162 browns averaging over one-half pound each April 7-1

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