Spring chinook salmon fishery on Columbia offers good catch

By Chester Allen | The Olympian • Published March 20, 2008

Welcome to the first day of spring, and it seems fitting that some of the best fishing — and catching — these days is the spring chinook salmon fishery on the Columbia River.

The season started March 16, and boat anglers averaged one fish for every 5.5 rods while fishing from the Hayden Island west power lines upstream to Bonneville Dam. The hot bite has been near Portland International Airport.

This fishery shifts to a Wednesday-through-Monday schedule after Sunday.

Chinook fishing opens below the Hayden Island power lines downstream to Buoy 10 from March 24 through April 4.

The limit on both sections of the lower Columbia is one fin-clipped hatchery adult chinook a day.

Biologists expect a big springer run this year on the Columbia River, with 269,300 expected to arrive. The spring chinook season also is open right now from Bonneville Dam upstream to McNary Dam. Anglers can keep two hatchery chinook a day in this stretch of river.

Most of the spring chinook haven’t made it over Bonneville Dam yet, but fishing should get hot upstream of the dam when they do make the trip up the fish ladders. Drano Lake — which is at the mouth of the Little White Salmon River — and Wind River should have good fishing when the springers show up.

Closer to home, a few tight-lipped anglers are catching blackmouth — resident chinook salmon — right here in South Sound. Anglers launching boats from Boston Harbor Marina and Zittel’s on Johnson Point and getting into a few of these fish, mostly during tidal changes. If you like blackmouth fishing, it might be worth a shot.

Looking toward the near future, many of the famous trout lakes in Eastern Washington open for fishing April 1.

One of the West’s most famous lakes for fly anglers — Dry Falls Lake — will open, and fishing is expected to be very good for rainbow, brown and tiger trout — a hybrid of brown and brook trout — up to 24 inches long. Anglers must follow selective fishing rules, which restricts tackle to lures or flies with a single, barbless hook.