This week in SW Washington, spring chinook are slowly showing up, and reports are popping up here and there with catches both on the Columbia and its tributaries. Spring chinook have yet to start pushing over Bonneville, but it should be any day now. Steelheading on the tributaries has picked up after the rains of last week and has been providing excellent fishing on almost all tributaries. Merwin has been hit or miss this week, with some anglers limiting quickly while others could barely put a few in the boat. Local trout fishing has been picking up as the warming lakes have put the trout on the bite.
REMINDER: Please verify the regulations before fishing in any body of water. AND wear a life jacket.
Lewis Report
The Lewis is dropping this week and is sitting at 6,000 cfs but is subject to change at any time with no rain incoming until Monday of next week. The river has been fishing alright, and it seems the wild steelhead have started to push in as well as the springers as I talked with Brandon Wubbon, who had lost a few steelhead below the golf course and had a few takedowns when he switched over to targeting springers. I talked with a few plunkers in the lower river as well, but the sea lions are packed in there pretty heavy, so that seemed to put a damper on any sort of bite.
Kalama Report
The Kalama is on the drop this week and is fishing amazingly in the lower river, although the upper stretches seem to be slow. Fishing pressure seems very high, as I talked with Ben Mulcahey, who fished the river on Sunday, 3/2/25, and counted 17 drift boats launching out of the slab hole that day. Ben lost one at the boat but said almost every boat he talked with had at least two fish in the boat and blamed his lack of success on launching later than everyone else and having to be the last man to fish each hole. Springers started to show up as he talked with one drift boat that had released a miscellaneous clip that day as well. I talked with Sean Chase as well, who fished the upper stretch and didn’t hook a fish or see one caught and said that the upper stretch seemed to still be a little too high still.
Cowlitz Report
Last week, Tacoma Power employees recovered 223 winter-run steelhead adults, five coho adults, one spring Chinook adult, and one cutthroat trout over five days of operations at the Cowlitz Salmon Hatchery separator. During the past week, Tacoma Power employees released eight winter-run steelhead, four coho, and one spring Chinook into Lake Scanewa near Randle, and they released six winter-run steelhead and one coho into the Tilton River at Bremer Bridge. The river flow below Mayfield Dam was 5,140 cubic feet per second on Wednesday, March 5, 2025. Water visibility is 5 feet, and water temperature is 43.2 degrees F.
Washougal River
The Washougal is sitting right around 1,000 cfs this week, and this last weekend was an absolutely awesome weekend of fishing as we went five for seven, catching four wilds and one hatchery. We fished on Saturday, 3/1/25, with low expectations and only went to the Washougal to stay away from the crowds and hope to get one. We were pleasantly surprised when we had barely gotten to the second hole and had already landed two fish. We had the river to ourselves and didn’t see another angler the entire day. We drifted the river the next day, and word must’ve gotten out because we were launching behind four drift boats. We only hooked into one on Sunday but didn’t land it.
Elochoman River
The Elochoman is coming down this week, and anglers are still catching fish in good numbers. I talked with Alex Hong, who landed his first winter steelhead of the year here on Saturday, 3/1/25. It has been super surprising that the run has lasted this long, but it comes as a pleasant surprise. There are probably only a few weeks left in the year to fish here before it becomes desolate of any steelhead until the summer’s start returning in May!
Merwin and Yale Lake
Merwin has been super hit or miss this week, with some anglers putting a serious hurting on the fish while others can barely get a bite. What it has come down to is experience; the ones that know, know and the ones that don’t just don’t catch. The fish have finally started to separate and focus back into that top 40 or so foot water column, though, so targeting the schools became a little easier. Randy Howe put the hammer down on 30 kokanee on Monday 3/3/25 with other members of the “Merwin Men” doing equally as well.
Local lakes and ponds
The WDFW website seems glitchy as of 3/5/25, and I was unable to pull up the trout plant reports, but as of last week, Klineline received 2,700 rainbows, and Battle Ground received 1,300 rainbows. I stopped and talked to an angler fishing at Lacamas on Sunday, 3/2/25, who had landed one trout, but in the time I was there, I watched as over twenty jumped just off the bank of the launch on the NE side of the lake.
Long Beach
Tentative dates have been set, but no approval has been given yet, and that should come any day now.
March 8, Saturday, 2:13 p.m.; 0.6 feet; Long Beach, Twin Harbors, Mocrocks
(change to daylight savings time)
March 9, Sunday, 4:18 p.m.; 0.4 feet; Long Beach, Twin Harbors, Copalis
Bottomfish
WDFW has set the 2025 bottom fish season with some more opportunities!
Stay fishy,
Seth Kolshinski
Read this week’s Oregon fishing report.
Found The Washington report abbreviated this week and not in the usual Southwest Washington fishing Section. Did we just get a short report this week?
I have a pretty bad case of COVID or the FLU so I wasn’t able to get out this weeks report sorry! Next week will be back to the regular scheduled report and forecast!