Saturday, April 25, 2009

SW Washington Fishing

Cowlitz River - 165 bank anglers kept 11 adult and 3 jack chinook and 4 steelhead plus released one adult chinook. 88 boat anglers kept 2 adult chinook and 25 steelhead plus released 2 adult chinook and 1 steelhead.

Lewis River - On the mainstem Lewis, 6 bank anglers kept 1 steelhead while 10 boat anglers had no catch. On the North Fork Lewis 10 bank anglers and 8 boat anglers had no catch.

Lower Columbia below Bonneville Dam - Last week we sampled 3,396 private boat anglers (1,415 boats) with 613 adult and 75 jack chinook plus 13 steelhead. We also sampled 698 bank anglers with 52 adult and 7 jack chinook and 5 steelhead. Overall, 561 (84.4%) of the 665 adult chinook caught were kept. Based on Visual Stock Identification, 466 (91.0%) of the 512 adult chinook sampled were upriver stock.

Weekend boat effort was down slightly from the previous week while the number of bank anglers were up. 2,709 salmonid boats and 1,372 bank anglers were counted during the Saturday April 18 flight. On Thursday April 16, a total of 1,945 boats and 676 bank anglers were counted, almost identical to the previous weekday flight.