Southwest Washington Fishing Reports
2002 Report Archive
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WDFW Sport Sampling Results for December 9-15, 2002
Sport Sampling Summaries - PDF Format

Salmon/Steelhead

• Cowlitz River - From the barrier dam downstream to Mission Bar one day last week revealed 24 bank anglers with 33 steelhead. Bank anglers averaged a fish for every 3.5 hours of effort. In addition, 34 boat anglers caught 17 steelhead and 2 coho.
• Lake Scanewa - Still good numbers of coho are being caught. Last week, 8 bank anglers kept 14 adult and 5 jack coho. 6 boat anglers kept 6 adults and one jack coho plus released 12 adults.
• During the past week Tacoma Power's Cowlitz Salmon Hatchery separator recovered 5,398 coho salmon, 255 coho jacks, 70 winter-run steelhead, 22 summer-run steelhead and 13 cutthroat trout during seven days of separator operations.
• Tacoma Power employees released 3,860 coho adults and 165 coho jacks into the upper Cowlitz River at the Day Use Park on Lake Scanewa during the week.
• Tacoma Power employees also released a total of 260 adult coho salmon and 25 coho jacks at the Skate Creek Bridge site on the upper Cowlitz River in Packwood , Washington during the week.
• Tacoma Power employees released 673 coho salmon, 41 coho jacks and five cutthroat trout into the Tilton River at Gust Backstrom Park in Morton , Washington during the week, and they released 22 coho adults at the Ike Kinswa State Park boat launch in Mayfield Lake .
• A total of 125 steelhead and nine sea-run cutthroat trout were recycled downstream to the Massey Bar boat launch during the week.
• River flows at Mayfield Dam are approximately 3,180 cubic feet per second on Monday, December 16. Water visibility is over 11 feet.
• Lewis River - No report on angling success. Last week, a 38 inch (fork length) wild coho with a similar size girth was found by WDFW biologists on a North Fork Lewis River spawning ground survey.
• The saltwater sport record of 25.34 lbs (caught 9/28/2001) was 35.75 inches (total length), 24.75 inches girth. The freshwater record of 25.27 lbs (caught 11/11/2001 from the Quinault) was 82 cm (32.28 inches) (total length) and 61.5 cm (24.21 inches) girth. Based on the above measurements, the dead, spawned out fish found last week on the North Fork Lewis was probably in excess of 30 pounds!
• Flows below Merwin Dam are currently 8,920 cfs. The long term mean for this date is 7,734 cfs.
• East Fork Lewis River - No report on angling success. Flows at Heissen are currently 1,920 cfs. The long term mean is 1,386 cfs.
• Bonneville Pool - Slowed for salmon and steelhead.
• Upper Columbia Spring Chinook Forecast - An estimated 150,000 upper Columbia spring chinook will return to the mouth of the Columbia in 2003. A large component of five year-olds is expected. The preliminary return for 2002 was 295,000 fish, the second largest on record.
• Willamette River Spring Chinook Forecast for 2003 - ODFW estimates 109,800 Willamette River spring chinook will return to the mouth of the Columbia in 2003. Of those, 89,200 are expected to be five year-olds. In 2002, an estimated 120,000 fish returned, the third largest run on record.
  

Sturgeon

• Lower Columbia below Bonneville Dam - No report is currently available.
• Bonneville Pool - Generally light effort and catches.

Walleye, Bass and other warmwater fish

• No Report
  

Trout

• No Report