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Catches Improving at Buoy 10 by Staff The Columbian, August 5, 2009

Salmon fishing at Buoy 10 opened Saturday and the catches are getting better by the day. Sampling at the Washington ports on Tuesday tallied 26 anglers with six chinook and 18 coho kept.

This is a good check for Aug. 4. Oregon's sample on Monday was 84 anglers with four chinook kept, 13 chinook released and 27 coho kept.

Catches at Buoy 10 should just keep improving as more salmon enter the river.

Ocean anglers out of the Columbia River ports averaged 1.8 salmon last week, with 97 percent being coho. Through Sunday, 43 percent of the ocean coho quota had been landed.

The lower Columbia is low and very warm, which generally results in good steelhead fishing in cold-water refuges such as the mouth of the Cowlitz or White Salmon rivers or inside Drano Lake.

The Columbia at Bonneville Dam was 75 degrees on Tuesday.

The commercial fleet fished Tuesday night, and go in again tonight and Sunday night from the mouth of the Columbia upstream to Beacon Rock.

The netters will move upstream and fish from the Kalama River mouth to Beacon Rock from 8 p.m. to 6 p.m. Aug. 18-19, 20-21 and 23-24. The fleet will move farther upstream and fish from the mouth of the Lewis River to Beacon Rock from 8 p.m. to 6 a.m. Aug. 25-26 and 27-28.

The commercials are projected to land 3,000 chinook and 1,200 sturgeon during the Aug. 4-7 period, 2,300 chinook and 750 sturgeon on Aug. 9 and 14,100 chinook and 150 sturgeon during Aug. 18-28.

Sturgeon fishing is done for the year in the Columbia River estuary. Sturgeon angling between the Wauna power lines and Bonneville Dam is catch-and-release only until Oct. 1.

Council and Takhlakh lakes on the west flank of Mount Adams have been stocked with rainbow trout recently. Council got 3,800 trout while Takhlakh got 4,000.

Angler checks and related information from the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) and Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife (ODFW):

Lower Columbia -- Cathlamet, 87 bank rods with 10 steelhead kept and five released. (WDFW)

Longview, 133 bank rods with 22 steelhead kept and 12 released; 14 boaters with five steelhead kept; 12 bank rods with 12 sublegals released; 14 boaters with two legal sturgeon kept plus one oversize and 11 sublegals released. (WDFW)

Longview to Portland, 198 boaters with one fall chinook and 67 steelhead kept plus 42 steelhead released; seven boaters with four sublegal sturgeon released. (ODFW)

Kalama, 86 bank rods with two steelhead kept and nine released; 14 boaters with one steelhead kept and two released. (WDFW)

Woodland, 44 bank rods with three steelhead kept and four released; four boaters with four steelhead kept; 13 bank rods with one legal sturgeon kept and 17 sublegals released. (WDFW)

Lewis River to Kelley Point, 30 bank rods with four steelhead kept and three released; 19 boaters with five steelhead kept and four released. (WDFW)

Kelley Point to Portland airport tower, 10 boaters with one oversize and 33 sublegals released. (WDFW)

Troutdale, eight boaters with no salmon or steelhead; 14 boaters with 10 walleye kept. (ODFW)

Camas-Washougal, two bank rods with no catch; seven boaters with one steelhead kept; seven bank rods with no sturgeon; four boaters with one legal sturgeon kept and seven sublegals released; three boaters with no walleye. (WDFW)

North Bonneville, 81 bank rods with 19 steelhead and one jack chinook kept plus eight steelhead released; two boaters with one steelhead released. (WDFW)

Columbia Gorge (downstream of Bonneville Dam), 136 Oregon bank rods with nine steelhead kept and 17 released; 15 boaters with two legal, 18 oversize and 17 sublegal sturgeon released; 30 Oregon bank rods with one legal, one oversize and five sublegal sturgeon released. (ODFW)

Mid-Columbia -- Bonneville pool, eight boaters with two chinook and three steelhead kept plus five steelhead released. (WDFW)

The Dalles pool, 17 bank rods with one chinook and one steelhead kept plus two steelhead released. (WDFW)

John Day pool, 51 boaters with 73 walleye kept and seven released; three boaters with 12 bass released. (WDFW)