This week in SW Washington we have sunshine and cold weather in the forecast dropping the rivers quickly and turning them clearer and clearer by the day. Steelheading is slowing on the Elochoman while later season steelheading is starting to pick up on the Cowlitz and Kalama. The Lewis and the Washougal have fish around but a fish has not been anywhere near a guarantee. Merwin is fishing great for this time of year with most anglers finding their limit of Kokanee although some anglers are taking several hours longer than others.
Sorry for the lack of report last week I got hit with a nasty virus and was pretty much unable to do anything! REMINDER, please verify the regulations before fishing any body of water. AND wear a life jacket.
Lewis Report – The Lewis has finally come down to a much more preferable level of 5,000 cfs. I reached out to multiple anglers this week but none had any success or had seen any success, which isn’t to say there aren’t plenty of fish around it seemingly was just a slow weekend for anglers on the Lewis. No guide report this week as all guides I got a hold of were either on different rivers or weren’t fishing.
Kalama Report The Kalama is down to 433 cfs which is still plenty driftable but like other non-dammed rivers is starting to get low and requires a bit more skill to row. On the fishing side of things, the river has really started to heat up in both angler activity and catch rates. I talked with a few anglers including Ben Mulcahey who went out with his father and one other angler where they went one for three landing a nice 16-pound steelhead. Most anglers seemed to at least land one if not more.
Cowlitz Report Last week, Tacoma Power employees recovered 64 coho adults, 28 coho jacks, two summer-run steelhead adults, and 49 winter-run steelhead adults over five days of operations at the Cowlitz Salmon Hatchery separator. During the past week, Tacoma Power employees released 54 coho adults, seven coho jacks, and two winter-run steelhead into Lake Scanewa and 10 coho adults, 21 coho jacks and two winter-run steelhead were released into the Tilton River at Bremer Bridge. River flow below Mayfield Dam is 6,070 cubic feet per second on Wednesday, January 15, 2025.
Washougal River Flows are starting to get LOW at nearly 5.5 ft on the flow gage (no cfs this week for some reason), I drifted the river both Saturday and Sunday from Hathaway and we slammed a few rocks Saturday as I had not paid much attention to the flow gage that morning. Sunday I paid a little more attention and got through the tricky zones but it took some technical rowing for sure. Fishing wise we went three for five on Saturday and had all around an amazing day of fishing with one of our landed steelhead being a wild summer but the other two nice hatchery winters.
Elochoman River The Elochoman is as low as I have ever seen it for this time of year and is incredibly low. After drifting the Washougal on Sunday morning all five of us hopped in the truck around 11am and drove the hour to the Elochoman where we saw 20+ anglers and fished until dark not hooking one fish or seeing or hearing of a fish caught. I heard from other anglers the day before had been an insane day with limits being pulled out left and right but with the low water conditions most fish weren’t moving much and had either seen enough things or been spooked enough that the next day was dramatically slower
Merwin and Yale Lake Merwin is still fishing fantastic with limits being taken out daily. Water levels are up to 230 which is launchable but as I said before be cautious as you can still back your trailer off the end of the ramp at this level, especially with a boat bigger than 20ft. I received reports all week talking about how good the fishing has been and the fish have started to become bigger than we have seen in a while. No one area at the lake has been fishing better than another and most fish are being caught in the top 20-40 foot water column.
Stay fishy,
Seth Kolshinski
Read this week’s Oregon fishing report.