Washington Fishing Report

Updated for the week of October 7th – October 13th, 2005
Washington Fishing Update

North Puget Sound- Typical fall weather, including rain and cooler temperatures, should improve fishing conditions in the region by bringing mint-bright, ocean-run coho salmon into the terminal marine areas. A 6-month-long selective hatchery winter blackmouth fishery is under way in marine areas 8-1 and 8-2, but the action so far has been slow. Saltwater-based anglers should expect to see a few chum salmon start to enter the catch statistics. Recreational crab fishing in the San Juan Islands closed as scheduled on Sept. 30. River-based anglers can't catch a break. Drought conditions kept stream flows far below normal for most of the summer, which made the fish skittish and difficult to catch. The Reiter Ponds section of the Skykomish River will open Oct. 8 to fishing for all game fish, including hatchery steelhead. Although the frenzy of pink salmon-fishing activity has slowed on the lower Duwamish-Green River, anglers can now fish for salmon all the way up to the South 277th Bridge in Auburn.

Sound/Olympic Peninsula - With salmon fishing moving in from the coast to area bays and rivers, anglers have a wide range of new options to consider, including trading in their fishing rods for clam shovels. Lakes remain a little too warm to rouse trout, but anglers will have much better odds at three spots in Grays Harbor that recently received plants. Coho have been making their way up the Puyallup River system for a while, along with a couple hundred thousand pink salmon and some chinook. Although the fish appeared more intent on getting up the newly opened rivers than eating, they should settle in pools and start biting in the next week or two, said Rick Ereth, another WDFW biologist. Another option for salmon is Grays Harbor, which opened Sept. 16 and is beginning to heat up. Anglers have been landing about one coho per boat. Anglers wanting a final shot at ocean salmon can head to LaPush, where a "bubble" fishery continues through Oct. 9.

Southwest Washington - With chinook retention now closed on the Columbia River from the mouth to Highway 395 bridge in Pasco, anglers are finding other ways to fill their coolers. On opening day, fish checkers counted 404 bank anglers with 151 legal sturgeon fishing just downstream of Bonneville Dam. Anglers fishing for salmon in several lower Columbia tributaries have also been doing fairly well - particularly in the Cowlitz and Lewis rivers. The Cowlitz River has also been giving up some good-sized sea-run cutthroat trout, now returning to the Cowlitz Hatchery.

Eastern Washington - This from Pro Guide Pat Long of Snake River Guide Service (509-751-0410) The Snake and Clearwater rivers are beginning to kick out some good numbers of steelhead. Bass fishing on the Snake has been excellent this past week, some nice fish (3 to 5 lbs.) are cruising around and actively feeding. Snake River steelhead action is picking up, reports WDFW fish biologist Joe Bumgarner. "Cooler weather has brought more fish into the system," he said Cooler weather throughout the region also seems to be encouraging trout to bite at the lakes that remain open through the end of the month or year-round.

North Central Washington- Thanks to large numbers of surplus adipose fin-clipped hatchery origin steelhead, portions of the upper Columbia, Okanogan and Methow rivers will open Oct. 8 to recreational fishing for adipose fin-clipped hatchery-origin steelhead. Meanwhile, Summer chinook fishing continues until Oct. 15 on the Columbia from Brewster to Bridgeport. "Over the first weekend of this month chinook fishing was good," said Bob Jateff, fish biologist.

South Central Washington- WDFW's most recent creel checks of chinook salmon and steelhead fishing on the Hanford Reach section of the Columbia River show participation and catch rates are up, although still slow. Cummins also reported that several Kittitas and Yakima county trout lakes were stocked with fall catchable-size fish at the end of September.

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