This past Monday has only been my third trip to the Columbia for springers around the Kalama area, so I am definitely an amatuer. But sometimes that can be an advantage since you do something unconventional because you do not know better. I was trolling along Deer Island downstream of St Helens while waiting to anchor when the river started to flow out . Since I only had anchovies because I couldn't find any decent herring, and the anchovies didn't spin very well when trolled, I put out a silver and chartruse Brad's wobbler. After trolling downriver for 20 minutes, the rod doubled over and my son landed a 16 lb springer. We saw a sea lion with a salmon about 10 minutes late. When the river was flowing at a decent rate, we anchored down river of the power plant and put out kwikfish with an anchovie wrap and some smelly jelly. We caught a 8 lb native steelhead (released before the sea lions got too close) and had another big take down that didn't hook up. Another boat nearby caught one springer and had a take down that didn't stick. At 3:00 the gill netters strung out their nets and started drifting through the area. As they came upon the anchored boats, they would motor toward the river center to clear the sport fishermen then pull the net all the way to the bank once the net had drifted about 30 yards below the anchored sport fishermen. After this happened about 5 times most of us picked up anchor and called it quits.

Deepwater