This week in SW Washington chinook and coho numbers over Bonneville skyrocketed with the catch rates not climbing and the fish not biting on the Columbia while the tributaries start to get hot with both chinook and coho pushing in with some steelhead still around in some areas. Drano Lake is starting to come alive with catch rates climbing after the recent storm. Buoy 10 continues to provide as it feels like it’s just getting started. Merwin continues to fish great with a recent rain cooling the lake some and bringing the fish closer to the surface. Catfishing along with warm water fish has been great in the local lakes.
REMINDER, please verify the regulations before fishing any body of water. AND wear a life jacket.
Lewis Report
Flows have risen to 2,000 cfs, coming up from 1,200 cfs and with more rain on the way we could see a rise to 3,000. I talked with a few anglers on Saturday evening before the storm rolled in at the golf course launch who had been out for steelhead but when they started hooking coho and chinook switched over to bobber and eggs through a few deep holes, they released three Tule and kept two coho.
Kalama Report
The weir is in place and most fish above it have found their way to the hatchery, I stopped by driving home from work Tuesday 8/20/24 and there wasn’t a soul around all the way to the red barn. Kalama fishing is a whole lot like practicing fishing and not catching as there are next to no fish around.
Cowlitz Report
Not much is going on this week on the Cowlitz with chinook closed and very few coho around, rain should help this weekend bring some more fish in but we are still a few more weeks out from the A run to really start to show.
Washougal River
The river is getting super low but got some good color to it with the stormy weather this last weekend and with more rain in the forecast should bring some more color and cooler water temps and bring in more fish. A few bobber fisherman have had some success according to Owen Corbet but it has mostly been a “flossing” show.
Columbia River salmon/steelhead report
Longview
Fishing has been really good around the mouth of the Cowlitz as good friend Ben Mulcahey has been fishing pretty much every day getting his chinook every trip although usually not getting a boat limit.
Kalama
Very few reports came out of Kalama this week unfortunately but the few I have received have been all the same, a ton of fish on the fish finder but not a lot biting. The storm Saturday night definitely threw off the bite.
Woodland
Woodland has been fishing well around the mouth of the Lewis for both anchor fishermen and the trollers. High slack is usually the best time to fish here and this coming weekend the tides look really good for an early morning high slack troll.
Camas
I fished pretty much all weekend outside of Camas/Washougal and to say it was slow for most anglers is an understatement. Tons and tons of fish on the finder but they did not want to commit to anything we trolled past them.
Bonneville Dam Counts
With a little over 50,000 chinook and 6,000 coho that sets the record for amount of fish over Bonneville to date since the creation of Bonneville dam for both species. I don’t want to jinx it and say it out loud but it’s hard not to be reminded of the 2015 similar early return and we ended the season with a record number of 954,140 chinook over the dam.
Sturgeon
After catching a few salmon Monday 8/19/24 we pulled out the sturgeon rods in 45 FOW and didn’t even get a bite. Creel reports don’t show anyone doing any better, they’re around and catchable but catch rates are not high.
Drano Lake
Drano has been hit and miss until recently, especially after the storm. We fished Sunday 5/18/24 from around 12pm-8pm and it wasn’t until around 6:30 that we started to see a steady stream of fish being caught.
Warm Water Lakes and Ponds
Fishing at Lacamas, round lake, Battleground, and Horseshoe Lake has been phenomenal for bass as I got a chance to stop in at a few of them while traveling around at work on Tuesday 8/20/24 and there were quite a few bass fisherman at each, and I even saw a bank angler hook one at Lacamas. Soft plastics are my go-to this time of year especially Sankos and crawdads.
Merwin Lake
Merwin has fished great this last week regardless of the storm if it didn’t actually help the fishing. One angler reported that the water temp was a whole degree and a half cooler at the surface from Friday when he was out Sunday which has brought the fish 10-15 feet higher in the water column.
Long Beach/Buoy 10
I caught up with Scott Nicols with Nichols Guide Service on Wednesday 8/21/24 who is guiding out of Buoy 10 currently and has had a ton of success this week. He has found a lot more coho than chinook this last week and that seems to be the general consensus among anglers as the chinook bite has seemingly slowed down a little.
Stay fishy,
Seth Kolshinski
There is A LOT more for SW Washington Members here, including Ian Carter’s complete monthly updates. And SW Washington members can find our complete Columbia River reports here.
Read this week’s Oregon fishing report.