Home Forums Fishing Freshwater Washington Spring Chinook

Been fishing the Cowlitz River in SW Washington lately. My dad brought his digital camera along this morning. This is me with a small hen (just shy of 12lbs).

Nice! I had planned on hitting the upper willamette today in hopes of hooking #1 for the year, but after the report i got yesterday, i decided to stay home and study.... depressing! Good to see you got into some fish, and that one looks.... tasty! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

Nice king! Man, about a month away now before those bad boys start rolling in the creeks around my place. I can't wait any longer! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> I need to go get my fishing gear ready now....

Waders,

BTW, what was your setup? When I'm fishing in the rivers I usually stick with a kwikfish(sp?). Like a 14 or 16. I've had good success in the past with those. On the creeks, though, especially the clear one's, I mess around with my own 'custom' spin-a-glo setup's. They really like about 4 green balls, two really, really small orange balls with a long piece of orange yarn trailing. How long does king season usually run for you? Once again, congrats.

Bearstalker,

Up in AK, you could probably cut the head off mine and use it for bait! My dad goes fishing in AK every year--the pics are amazing. I fished the Nushgak (sp?) River near Dillingham one year. That was fun.

Down here in southwest Washington, techniques vary widely depending on where you're at. On the Columbia and it's larger tributaries, size 14-16 Kwikfish are immensely popular. We cut a small filet of sardine and wrap it on so it straddles the post for the belly hook. We also troll herring, both cut plug and with the head on. In the smaller rivers, Mag Wiggle Warts work well, so do corkies and yarn with a little shrimp or herring oil. Some guys backbounce eggs or sandshrimp or even combos of both.

My fish was taken backbouncing eggs. We were fishing the upstream end of a deep hole, right on the slope. She took my eggs so deep, I couldn't reach the hook with needle nose pliers.

I had to hold my chin way down so I could get my hat logo in the picture. I post to a fishing website that focuses on Washington fishing. We always try to do a little advertising for the webmaster because he runs a real nice site and doesn't have outside advertising on it.

The length of the season of course is tied to the size of the run, but we start fishing in mid to late March way down on the Columbia and just track the fish upstream as they get closer to my home town (saves drive time). We follow them up through Cathlamet and they reach Longview by the middle of April. Towards the end of April they reach the tributaries (Willamette, Kalama, Lewis, and Cowlitz Rivers). The fishing on the tributaries should stay strong for another month, but the fish will be getting dark and ragged by then.

Take care!