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Anglers find 2000 salmon runs special
When all is said and done, 2000 will undoubtedly be remembered as the year of the salmon.
It all started in the spring with record-breaking chinook runs bound for lower Columbia River tributaries and hatcheries, and it likely will be topped off with a fabulous fall run.
The word so far from charter boat skippers to sport anglers to biologists is that this year's ocean and lower Columbia River salmon season is perhaps the best since the heyday of the mid-1980s.
Butch Smith of Coho Charters in Ilwaco said limits of chinook and coho have been a daily routine since the season began July 10.
With a two-fish limit - including one chinook, or king - many charter operators are running multiple trips each day and returning each time with a full catch.
However, with a quota on both silvers and kings, anglers should be booking a trip as soon as possible, Smith said. For ocean anglers fishing out of Ilwaco, the coho quota is 38,000 fish, and Smith figures anglers already have reached the halfway point. The king quota is 4,500, with about 28 percent of that figure already filleted.
"The fish are real nice this year, too, with coho averaging 7 to 9 pounds and chinook running from 12 to 18 pounds," he said.
Joe Hymer, a state Department of Fish and Wildlife biologist in Vancouver, said the popular Buoy 10 fishery, which began Aug. 1, is off to a robust start.
"Anglers are averaging about one coho a boat, with a few chinook showing up in the catch. But the season is just beginning and will only get better, and more crowded" he said.
At Buoy 10, anglers face a 9,000 fish quota on chinook, which could be met by the end of August or early September.
"However, there is no quota on silvers and their numbers are outstanding," Hymer said.
The state is forecasting 450,000 coho and 328,000 chinook will move through the lower Columbia, with anglers expected to catch at least 60,000 adult coho.
While all coho, or silvers - including those taken in the ocean and the Columbia - must be fin-clipped, a mass marking program begun by Oregon and Washington fish managers about three years should mean the majority will be keepers.
One of the most productive methods of fishing is trolling a plug-cut herring behind a diving plane, such as Easy Divers, Deep Sixes (also called Pink Ladies) or the Delta Diver, Hymer explained.
Another time-honored tradition is to run with the flood tide, fishing rip lines using a mooching sinker rig and plug-cut herring.
"The key to using plug-cut herring is getting the roll of the bait correct. I've been out there trying to adjust the roll and had a silver come up and grab it. When that happens, I guess you've got it right," Hymer said.
The Buoy 10 fishery is open daily, while ocean fishing is limited to Sundays through Thursdays.
And if record numbers of salmon aren't enough to get you running for your tackle, a banner run of steelhead is steadily moving up the Columbia.
Already, 100,000 cromesides have been tallied at Bonneville Dam and officials are estimating as many as 400,000 to 500,000 could eventually make their way upsteam, making it one of the best runs in several years and twice the recent 10-year average.
Moreover, because of warm water conditions on the Columbia, many of these fish are cooling their fins in lower river tributaries, including Drano Lake and Oregon's Deschutes River.
At Drano, steelheaders have been averaging about a fish a rod for the past two weeks, with many catching their legal possession limit of four fish by fishing late at night and into the next day, Hymer said.
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