From what I have observed, between the short week and the reduced limit on sockeye that salmon anglers are allowed this season here on the upper Columbia River, they are more eager than ever to get out after them. The Brewster Pool is still packed with boats trolling and having varying success. There should be some “bubble fisheries” for Chinook salmon announced this week, too.
I want to remind folks in the Wenatchee Valley or are visiting Leavenworth that there is a free kids fishing event taking place at the Blackbird Island Juvenile Pond. The free “derby” was the idea of my 13 year old neighbor Calder Fiske. Calder loves fishing and wants to encourage more kids and their families to try fishing. He got some sponsors to provide prizes, and his fishing buddies are volunteering to help out. There are rods and reels that will be awarded to the angler that catches the longest fish in three age categories. The event will begin at 8 a.m. and last until noon. Anglers should bring their own fishing gear and bait will be provided. This is a pretty cool event in that it was the idea of a young angler, put on by other young anglers to encourage young anglers to try fishing. If you have questions about the kids fishing event you can contact Calder at calder.fiske@icloud.com. This week’s photo is of the poster that Calder created for the event.
I fished the Brewster Pool for sockeye last Friday. There is still a great bite going on there. I wish I could tell you my fishing partners Brian Anantatmula and Brendan Wilson and I put a bunch of sockeye in the cooler, but not so. I set the stage at 4:30 when I couldn’t seem to get the fish that Brendan hooked into the net before it got away. I was sent to the bow to drive after that, but it didn’t change our luck at landing fish. We went one for twelve and finally managed to net a fish later in the morning. I have told this story to a few other anglers and am hearing a lot of similar stories. These darn sockeye have a special talent for slipping the hooks. I think I need a net with a 10 foot handle! I had better get this figured out. If the Lake Wenatchee sockeye season opens and I lose fish like this, I will have some very long days on the water.
My friend James Lebow and I really like fishing for triploid rainbow trout on Rufus Woods Reservoir. Since he had some business to do in Omak, and I still had some video work to do on Rufus it was all we needed to put together a trip to the net pens. His side kick Tyler Bergquist joined us and we launched the Smoker Craft at the middle pens. We made a couple passes with bottom bouncers and spinners to see if we could get some walleye. We marked a few and got a couple of bites but were eager to put some fish in the boat. Running up to the upper net pens, the Garmin lit up with fish on the screen. I launched the Minn Kota and put it on Spot Lock, and we dropped some Power Bait down to the bottom. In about 40 minutes we had six fat triploids in the cooler. The fish have grown from the 1.6 pound average when the Colville Tribe released them into the reservoir. They are now close to a 2.5 pound average.
I got a call last week from the Region 2 office in Ephrata, with an update on the upper Columbia Chinook fishery. The TAC committee has upgraded the summer Chinook return to the upper Columbia to 43,400. The original forecast was for 38,000, which prompted the closure of the Chinook fishery in this region earlier this year. There aren’t a whole lot of fish available for harvest, but enough to allow for some potential “bubble fisheries” for Chinook. Also, I finally got an updated forecast for the Lake Wenatchee sockeye fishery. About 46,000 sockeye are anticipated to reach the lake this season, if the run up the Columbia holds up. As you know I have been tracking the passage over the Columbia River dams in our area and at Tumwater Dam on the Wenatchee River. So far, the numbers have been encouraging, and this forecast confirms what I was hoping for. It is still a “wait and see” situation, so continue to follow my reports for updates.
The return of sockeye salmon to the Columbia River is now expected to be just over 172,000, and it is hoped that what we have in place here in the upper Columbia will keep us on the water through August. The reduced limit to two fish a day and a short fishing week may do the trick. I am holding out hope for a season on Lake Wenatchee. The count last Thursday at Tumwater was 11,574 and I don’t believe that included the numbers from DART, which would add another 13,277 fish. So, the total at Tumwater should be around 24,851. The number of sockeye that have passed over Rock Island Dam but have not gone over Rocky Reach Dam is 39,637! Boy, if those fish are going to head up the Wenatchee River we will be in great shape. Remember, we need 23,000 to reach the escapement goal, and a few thousand over that to have a fishery. So far water temperatures are decent on the Wenatchee River. Cool water is very important to move sockeye up the river into Lake Wenatchee.
I got a photo texted to me of fish carcasses in the East Wenatchee dump. The person that sent it speculated that they were summer runs. I happened to talk to the person that actually dumped the fish, and they said they were captured at Tumwater Dam. They are overshoots of spring salmon from the Leavenworth hatchery. They are Carson stock fish and are not the upper Columbia native spring salmon that are endangered. There has been a huge effort to recover this run, with little or no progress. I think we need more than good habitat to see their numbers increase.
