Fishing: As winter steelhead runs continue to build in area rivers, WDFW will start planting lakes throughout the region with catchable-size and larger brood stock rainbow trout and excess hatchery steelhead that become available. Evening razor clam digs also are scheduled Dec. 11-14 at Copalis and Mocrocks and Dec. 12-14 at Long Beach and Twin Harbors. Digging will be restricted to the hours between noon and midnight.
Catch rates for hatchery steelhead were fairly low in the lower Columbia River Basin through the first week of December, but should improve after a good winter rain, said Joe Hymer, a WDFW fish biologist.
"We're getting a good early return to the hatcheries, but a lot of rivers are running low and clear," Hymer said. "Rain should improve fishing and help us determine whether this run is big or just early."
Through the first week of December, 743 winter steelhead had returned to the Cowlitz hatcheries, compared to 84 during the same period last year. Thirty-four boat anglers contacted in a creel survey that week caught five hatchery fish above the Interstate 5 Bridge, but 42 bank anglers accounted for just two fish. Sixteen anglers interviewed below the bridge had no catch.
During the first week of December, Tacoma Power employees transported 630 coho adults and six winter-run steelhead from the Cowlitz Salmon Hatchery to Lake Scanewa above Cowlitz Falls Dam. They also moved 106 coho adults, an adult fall chinook and six cutthroat trout into the Tilton River at Gust Backstom Park in Morton, 367 coho adults into the upper Cowlitz River at the Skate Creek Bridge in Packwood and 221 sea-run cutthroat trout to the Interstate-5 boat launch.
Six bank anglers fishing Blue Creek caught and kept three summer-run steelhead, but catch rates were generally light on the Kalama River and the North Fork Lewis River. Returns to the Lewis River Hatchery were lagging slightly (408 compared to 489 last year), but about twice as many winter steelhead had returned to hatcheries on the Kalama and Washougal rivers through the first week of December as last year.
"It's still early in the run, but there's a chance of some good fishing once we get some rain," Hymer said. As always, anglers are reminded that any wild steelhead they intercept with an intact adipose fin must be released.
