I live about 6 hours drive from the Longview area on the Lower Columbia River and wanted to take a trip there this summer with my sons for fall chinook. Can someone tell me when this fishery is good? I was told by some locals a couple years ago that it happens sometime in August. I'm thinking about anchoring up and fishing k-lures, kwikfish, etc. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Best Regards,

RM

Firstr off do you boat fish or bank I'm assuming boat. The fishin starts up in August but it is a sure bet to catch a fish from around sep 5 to sep 14th. We caught at least one each day during that stretch and have limited the boat out on the 8, 9, 10, and 11th three years in a row. It's easy to find this zipper lip fishin hole just look for the 300 other boats. You fish in 50 feet of water and an alvin type of lure is the one too go with I prefer the K Lure with a treble hook myself. You have to remember you can only keep one chinook a day out of your two salmon a day limit though this year. Hope this helped.

Riverman, Just so you know..i fish WAY upriver around marker 32, You don't have to be in deep water to catch Fall Chinook...I am in water around 24 ft, ....I fish a 5'6 dropper and about a 4' leader leader and do very well....Use either an Alvin, Brad, or Simon, All those wobblers have out fished the Alvin for me in the past years.... Hope you do well...

Louis F.

I appreciate the info guys, thank you very much for your time.

Good fishing.

RM

Sometime around the last week in August is when I get motivated. There are fish around earlier.

I looked for marker 32 on my map (fish-n-map) and found 31 and 33 but not 32 . they were near ,just down stream of, the astoria bridge. is this were you are talking about.???

Riverman, last year saw great fishing over the Labor Day holiday. There's some talk about the fish being a little later this year, but as Onearmedbandit posted, those dates should be peak time.

On these wobblers, search the archives here or on the other boards for details on how to tune them - it's often really important.

Hot colors change sometimes from year to year so you'll want to check back in mid-August and see what this year's flavor is.

If you want good action for your boys go down by the astoria bridge in the middle of august and troll cut plug herring behind a delta diver and fish flash. Tie your mainline to the diver. Then tie about a foot or so of dacron between the diver and fish flash. Use a 4-5' leader from there to your herring with a bead chain in between. Those lengths are just a base to begin with. They aren't the best or the worst but they'll work. Try different things and you will catch fish.

You'll catch both silvers and kings doing this. Look for the crowds and hop in the troll lines. Want some more info pm me and I'll give you my phone number and I'll run you through the basics.

Good Luck
Kris

Been awhile since I checked back, much thanks to you guys for the info. Kris...might take you up on that.

RM

I do what Glowball recommends, except I use a large orange Spi-N-Glow on a mooching leader about 3'-4' back behind the FishFlash. Catches both Chinook & Coho.