SA: If you don't mind crowds The wind river fishery is doable. Last year we saw all sorts of small crafts there. Even a thingy that looked like a surf board with an electric trolling motor on it. I didn't laugh too much as he had a nice fish on when we first saw him. But, as said above it can get bad in a hurry on the Columbia. Wear your life jacket, and don't do anything dumb. We did last year. A coworker invited me to go along in one of his friends boats. Turns out it was a 15' smokercraft and there were a total of 5 of us. After launching the guy tells us the big motor isn't working and we'll be using the 8 hp. We all just looked at each other in amazement that the guy would invite us all while knowing the situation. Only 2 of us had been on the Columbia before and knew the risk involved. We were very lucky and the water was like glass all day. And we caught fish. We were out of Cathlamett and fished the (Oops! nevermind!!!)