Hunting and Fishing

Steelhead

Steelheaders are already wetting their lines in portions of the Upper Columbia, Methow and Okanogan rivers for the season that opened today, thanks to one of the highest steelhead returns in 15 years.

Daily catch limit is two adipose-fin-clipped hatchery steelhead (minimum size 20 inches). Night fishing is prohibited in all waters open to steelheading above Rocky Reach Dam. Selective-gear rules apply in Columbia tributaries, except boats with motors can be used.

Details and updates on regulations for these and other evolving steelhead and salmon fisheries are on the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife Web site: http://wdfw.wa.gov.

Snake River-area steelheading was fabulous in some areas during surveys conducted last week. For instance, Touchet River, two hours per fish; Tucannon River, 2.4 hours; Grande Ronde, six hours; Snake below Ice Harbor dam, seven hours; Snake between Lower Monumental and Little Goose dams, 14 hours; Snake between Little Goose and Lower Granite dams, 18 hours; Snake between Ice Harbor and Lower Monumental dams, 21 hours.

Starting today, anglers can target steelhead on the Columbia from the Highway 395 Bridge in Pasco upriver to the Old Hanford townsite wooden towers.

Salmon

An unexpected rush of chinook salmon charged past Bonneville Dam in mid-September and chinook catches are peaking at the mouths of the Big White Salmon, Wind and Klickitat rivers and should remain good for the next several weeks.

Biologists expect the fall chinook run to exceed 700,000 fish, far surpassing the preseason estimate of 634,000. Anglers are reaping the harvest in the upper Columbia while anglers in the Snake River drainage, where fall chinook are still listed as endangered, must simply marvel at the recovery.

Chinook counts set a daily record in mid-September at Lower Granite Dam, the Snake’s uppermost dam with fish passage facilities. The daily count, 976 fish, is the highest in a single day since the dam was built in 1975, according to the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission.

That daily number also is more than the entire season total in all but 11 of the past 20 years.

Some chinook salmon harvest will be allowed in the Columbia River from Wells Dam upstream to the Hwy. 17 bridge at Bridgeport through Oct. 15.

Hanford Reach salmon anglers are averaging about one chinook for 23 hours of effort, WDFW surveys show.

Ilwaco salmon fishing closed Thursday and LaPush will close Oct. 10, marking the end of the 2004 recreational ocean salmon fishery. But coho salmon continue to provide angling action in Puget Sound marine and freshwater areas.

Trout/kokanee

While fishing remains open on most Eastern Washington waters, the general trout season ended Friday on dozens of lakes, including Badger, Downs, Fish, Liberty, West Medical and Williams. In the cases of Amber and North Silver lakes, the seasons merely switch to catch-and-release, just as fall insect hatches are booming.

The next major closure for trout waters is Oct. 31. Check the regs.

Lake Roosevelt rainbow trout fishing is going strong, especially in the Hunters area where angler were limiting in a few hours, WDFW surveys show.

Kokanee in the 14-inch range are schooling in the north end of Lake Coeur d’Alene and heading toward Wolf Lodge Bay. Anglers there are coming off the water smiling.

Spiny rays

Moses Lake crappie fishing is evidently hot, since WDFW enforcement officers recently issued 17 citations in one day to anglers exceeding the limit or bagging undersized crappie.

Pikeminnows

Devout bounty hunters based out of Boyer Park on the Snake River ended the annual pikeminnow reward season with a bang last week. They logged 123 angler days in the last week of the annual six-month season to catch 1,864 squawfish, for which they were handsomely rewarded to the tune of $5-$8 a fish.

The program to reduce predation on endangered salmon and steelhead smolts is funded by the Bonneville Power Administration. This year the program paid anglers who removed 267,215 pikeminnows from the rivers.

Upland birds

Quail and partridge seasons open Saturday in Washington.

Quail numbers are great in many areas and spotty in others, WDFW biologists say, while chukar and Hun numbers are fair in most areas. With a few spot areas exceptions, none of these species had a hatch that compares with last year’s bumper crop, they say.

The best quail hunting might be in Grant County, said WDFW biologist Jim Tabor, and Hungarian partridge seem to have done well in portions of Adams County.

Remember that Eastern Washington pheasant hunting does not open until Oct. 23.

Forest grouse also appear to have suffered from bad weather during nesting.

Northeast Washington’s new general wild turkey season closes today.

Waterfowl

Waterfowl seasons open in North Idaho on Saturday, a week earlier than in the balmier south end of the state.

Washington’s general duck and goose seasons open Oct. 16. Be warned: Drought conditions appear to have caused a lot of ducks and geese to pass over northeastern and central Washington for water farther south. A large percentage of the Lincoln County potholes are dry. Columbia Basin hunting ought to be better.

Deer/elk

Muzzleloader deer hunting opens in some Washington units on Saturday while the modern firearm seasons won’t open until Oct. 16.

Hunting should be good for whitetails that seem to be recovering in northeastern Washington, where last year’s buck harvest was up 10 percent and the antlerless harvest was up 32 percent from 2002.

Columbia Basin mule deer numbers are as high as any time in the past 20 years in Douglas, Grant and Okanogan counties, the WDFW reports.

Clam digging

Washington’s fall coastal razor-clamming is tentatively scheduled to start with an Oct. 14-16 season at Long Beach, Mocrocks, Copalis and Twin Harbors beaches if test results indicate the clams are safe to eat.

Other seasons are set for Nov. 11-13 and Dec. 10-12.

For updates, check the Internet at www.wa.gov/wdfw/ or call the state’s Shellfish Hotline (866) 880-5431.