Ok guys here it is. Last year at this time fishing was starting to pick up pretty good. I realize with the weather and water conditions as they are, not a lot of people exept diehards out there (and lots of nets) I am planning on going down next week to give it a shot. If anyone has been out let me know whats going on Just reply or send me an E-mail Thanx
Ramprat

I fished it yesterday afternoon - muddy and slow - fish checker said he checked nothing, I hooked nothing or even marked anything in 4 hours, although I was not there for the best part of the tide. Going to try it again Sunday and hope it clears up a little by then.

Friends of mine just called a while ago and they did not toooooouch a thing out of Cathlamet the last day and a half, vis was as low as 1 foot at times with lots of sealions in the area. They may head up above the cowlitz tomorrow. Lets hope it clears and the sun comes out as I have a trip planned for the 22-24, hope its good, may be the only chance I get out.

NEN

No more than a dozen sea lions between the Cowlitz and the Kalama Sunday, March 10. Birds all over the place so there were still smelt around. We did manage one good hard takedown on a spinner but never got a look at the fish and the weather went to hell in the afternoon so we took out early. I'll try Willow Grove next weekend if the water color and weather improves. At the moment here, south of Chehalis, it looks like early January outside.

jcw
we went out of the ammo dump today in the snow storm 6hrs of nothing than 15min. before I had to leave for work I hooked 24# hatchery hen . but It sure is slow. they have to show up soon but everything is late . Hell its still snowing!!!

Okay Creekwalker!
It's early yet, the water is cold, the color aint great, yada, yada, yada. But you got some action.

Seems like we were doing better this time last year but, at least, I've got plenty of good excuses.

Was up at Bonneville yesterday and managed to land a hatchery hen and missed another. I Went up there again this evning landed a native and that is it. I seen 9 fish landed tonight and three were hatchery fish, not bad for beening this early in the season.

We fished the Wind river on the saturday opener, maybe 8-10 boats there and 6-8 at Drano lake.We caught the only springer at the Wind on saturday, a very nice 26#, we saw one other hooked and lost and we had one other hard take down. Fished today
(sunday) with 4 other boats and saw no fish caught. It's early but we still had to try.I've fished the gorge for 25 years and this was the worst weather I've ever fished in. cold 35 degrees, wind
with gusts to 40mph, rain, sleet, blizzard like snow at times,a little sun. Can't wait to try again this week.

Man, I hit it hard today at Cathlamet - perfect weather after an icy drive getting there, no wind, great tides, a little muddy but not impossible and NO FISH - I marked exactly one fish and took a pass over him twice, but no bite.

I heard the commercials did good - figures, lets just give away spring chinook for less than it costs to raise them in the hatchery, and for 15 times less per fish return to the economy than if you or I caught it. Lets make sure to keep that sport effort down to nothing to make a couple dozen commercial boys happy playing with their tangle nets, because after all, we are in a recession and we have to close hatcheries as we don't have enough money. Oh, I'm sorry, being sarcastic again - I guess knowing that the fish I spent all day looking for wound up in a gillnet does that to me

I got a report from a buddy that fished Saturday. He said approximately 12-15 boats were in the Longview area. No fish caught, water was very dirty(approx. 2 feet of visability).He was above the Cowlitz so dirty water must have been from the Lewis. I think we're still acouple weeks early, also the nets have to come out!!

I think you can pretty much count on the nets being in for quite awhile.
With the so-called tanglenets in they are now a selective fishery.They can release natives,presumably unharmed.That means we got screwed because they wont rech their goals and be done in a hurry.
They can fish till they reach their quotas.I'm not sure what it is.14950or 19000,something like that.
I think we will be enjoying their company most of the springer season

I just found out something about this wonderful net fishery that pees me off even more - they are not even using tangle nets - instead they are using 5 1/2 inch mesh because they "don't have any tangle nets so we want to use what we have". This crap is catching 2-3 steelhead for each springer. Mortality of released chinook on 8 inch is 50%, so it has to be at least that bad on smaller steelhead caught on 5 1/2. This is 50+% mortality on ESA listed wild steelhead. Moreover, the geniuses at WDFW have said only 10% of the kings die in a 5 1/2 net, when 12% die in a real tangle net. I would say easily we are looking at 25+% mortality using this larger mesh, and probably at least 50% on 3 year olds. No wonder I couldn't catch anything this last weekend. This is cr@p - fish commission is getting and earful from me tonight, and all you should chime in also - this is a huge step backward and is guaranteed to result in an early closure for us, when they finally figured out that the stinkin commercials killed so many native fish that our measly hooking mortality of 2-3% will be too much for the remaining "endangered" wild fish.

I've got this great Idea, lets get back to fishing reports and quit with the guns, hooks, namecalling and bullshiat going around. Anybody else want to turn the computer off when that's all that's on the top five post..............
Anyhoo, I have a trip planned this weekend but would be willing to push it back a week if things are not looking up real soon down on the Big C. I will most likely only have one chance to go and do not want to waste it, not that any trip is a true waste. Any other reports from the mother river? huh? Anybody else planning a trip this weekend?

NEN

With you there, NEN, although I might still be tempted to flame a gillnetter I've planned on trying the big C again on Sunday, 0 dark 30 when the tide turns at Cathlamet, but it will depend a bit upon the results of the Fish Commish meeting mid-week - if they turn the damn gillnetters loose again it probably won't be worth it - that and I'm a bit concerned about what all the rain will do to the color - already not good and with the Cow on the way out will probably get worse. Gads, I may have to go back to blackmouth

Hey Spawnout! Let's go to Drano! It'd probably be as productive as mid-channel, clay banks or perhaps even the L. Col. R.

Thanx for the reports,
I will probably wait a week or two before going down. At least this will give me time to tie up gear work on my boats and tie some flies for trout.
Ramprat

Drano with 421 fish over the dam sounds pretty thin D - would have to be thousands up there before I think it would be worth it. Not that it's ever really worth fishing that cracker show except for the entertainment value

That will likely be about one more week...

I've got a couple questions and a gripe.

I'm not much of a salmon angler and no little about fishing the Columbia. I've heard that springer movement is temperature correlated. Have any of you who are fishing taken the river temperature? If so, what is it? Next, does anyone know what the temperature threshold is that stimulates the springers to migrate in good numbers? Since steelhead rivers have closed left and right, I might as well learn a new game.

Second, I don't usually complain that much about commercial fishing, but I heard they are fishing Mon., Wed., and Fri., instead of three consecutive days. This is a pattern that almost guarantees lousy or mediocre recreational fishing. Commercial net fishing on Puget Sound used to be clustered in the early part of the week, beginning Sunday night, allowing a build up of fish that improved weekend sport fishing. Is there a rationale for this spread? The regional fish manager made it sound like it wasn't his doing. Will sport fishing be productive before the non-treaty commercials achieve their quota?

Guess that was more than a couple questions.

Sincerely,

Salmo g.

Salmo g, the Columbia, at the mouth of the Wind river has been 39 at day lite, then warming upto 42 during the day, the closer we get to 50 the better they will move.