For most people rain in SW Washington is stay-at-home weather but for anglers, this week’s rains mean fresh salmon in the Tributaries. The Columbia is fishing well in some areas and slowing heavily in others as we start to get to the end of the season. Merwin has slowed for a lot of anglers while Yale has fished great, well into October. The second set of razor clam digs was approved for this week! Weir removal week as well, providing more tributary opportunities.
REMINDER, please verify the regulations before fishing any body of water. AND wear a life jacket.
Lewis Report – The river was awfully slow fishing for the past week as most anglers I talked to on Sunday evening when I stopped by Cedar Creek hadn’t had a single strike or fish on the bank. There were a few boats sitting in the meat hole but in the hour I was there tossing spinners no one hooked up. As I was walking back to the truck I talked with a boat that had been out on the river for a few hours and had one takedown on a twitching jig and landed that fish although he couldn’t find another biter.
Kalama Report – The weir has been removed as of 10/14/24 although I haven’t been able to catch up with anyone this week so no report but the B run coho should start pushing in good as the weir was reporting receiving some last week.
Cowlitz Report – Tacoma Power employees released 720 coho adults, 158 coho jacks, 121 fall Chinook adults, 13 fall Chinook jacks, and three cutthroat trout to the Tilton River near Morton. River flow below Mayfield Dam is 3,620 cubic feet per second on Wednesday, October 16th, 2024. Reports on the Cowlitz this week have been an anomaly this week with some people doing the exact same thing as other anglers and not catching fish while other anglers have limited in no time on their coho.
Washougal River – The Washougal went from being nearly dead in the water to lights out fishing seemingly overnight with a ton of fish being caught left and right with the rain that came Tuesday night into Wednesday 10/16/24. The lower river seems to be where the most fish are holding, aka the Camas police station to the mouth. Owen Corbett fished Wednesday and hooked into a few large older chinook but caught a few coho as well.
Camas – I fished the mouth of the Sandy on Saturday after the wind picked up at Beacon Rock and it was nearly completely dead. We fished for several hours and it wasn’t until we reeled in our rods to get ready to head back to the launch when we saw a net fly. Although it wasn’t for the lack of jumping coho around. Tanner Tyler had a completely different experience Sunday evening going 2 for 4 in only a few hours of trolling spinners near “50”.
Beacon Rock – I launched early on Saturday morning to head to Reed Island and as we were pulling out of the launch several guides took off ahead of us when they kept going past Reed we followed as they seemed to be headed further up. When they slowed down like we did at Beacon Rock, we hadn’t rigged rods yet so we got all rigged up and around 7:30 we put rods in the water and the picture below was time-stamped at 7:34 and it was lights out fishing. We couldn’t keep the rods in the rod holder long enough for them to bury but almost every fish was dark unfortunately.
Drano Lake – Drano continues to provide bright chinook well into October believe it or not the vast majority of the angler effort has been directed at the dime bright coho that have started to really get aggressive. I haven’t seen this much angler effort this far in October in years and it is still very much productive.
Merwin and Yale Lake – Merwin severely slowed this week as Randy Adams reports fishing for ten hours with a friend on Monday 10/14/24 and only landed two kokanee. Meanwhile, Yale has been much better with limits to go around for almost all anglers.
Long Beach – Razor clamming is in full effect this week as people are already out on the beaches digging up these tasty treats this week. I plan to head out on Sunday as the weather looks like it might break in the evening. I will keep you updated on how it goes next week.
Oct. 17, Thursday, 7:03 p.m.; -1.3 feet; Long Beach, Twin Harbors, Copalis
Oct. 18, Friday, 7:49 p.m.; -1.7 feet; Long Beach, Twin Harbors, Mocrocks
Oct. 19, Saturday, 8:35 p.m.; -1.7 feet; Long Beach, Twin Harbors, Mocrocks
Oct. 20, Sunday, 9:24 p.m.; -1.4 feet; Long Beach, Twin Harbors, Copalis
Oct. 21, Monday, 10:16 p.m.; -0.8 feet; Long Beach, Twin Harbors, Copalis
Stay fishy,
Seth Kolshinski
There is A LOT more for SW Washington Members here, including Ian Carter’s complete monthly updates. SW Washington members can find our complete Columbia River reports here.
Read this week’s Oregon fishing report.