Add Location To Luck When Luring Chinook Salmon

The sun still hadn’t peeked over the White Bluffs when we arrived at a popular spot on the Columbia River, but already anglers in 15 to 20 boats were back trolling, drifting lures and anchored.

Big chinook salmon, some of them weighing more than 40 pounds, rolled and jumped around the boats. The hole, it seemed, was full of salmon.

“Too many people,” Don Ostlund said. “Let’s go upstream.” Yosh Tamaki and I agreed. We knew we couldn’t get away from all the fishermen, but we could fish where there were only a few boats.

Ostlund pushed the throttle down and the 19-foot boat, powered by a 115-horsepower engine, leaped up to a plane and we sliced through the 5-knot current at 45 miles per hour. We soon were drifting down through one of our favorite areas, our Blue Fox spinners bumping the bottom.

Suddenly, my rod tip went down and a chinook began running. The 20-pound fish was still bright enough for its spots to show.

Fifteen minutes later Tamaki hooked a chinook, a little larger than the one I caught.

Luck plays a part, but experience is more important. Anglers who consistently catch chinooks know the most productive spots, what lures to use and how to fish them. Ostlund, a fisherman’s fisherman, has fished for chinooks along the Hanford Reach for several years. He and his friends usually catch salmon.

It’s important for an angler to be on the river at daybreak. The best fishing usually is from dawn to about 9. Chinooks are more inclined to take a lure or bait early each day than later. They often, but not always, get lockjaw by noon. Evening fishing can be productive; however, it’s not as good as during early morning hours.

Anglers start lining up at the Wahluke and Vernita Bridge boat launching areas about 5 a.m. We were lucky. We had Ostlund’s boat in the water within 30 minutes after we lined up each of the two mornings we launched.

Most anglers, knowing they should be ready to fish after launching their boats, transfer their equipment from their vehicles to their boats while they wait. Their rods are strung with line and lures are tied on by the time they launch.

A few fishermen, however, wait until they’ve backed their boats down to the water to transfer equipment to the boats. As other anglers fume, they take their time.

Majority of salmon fishermen use Blue Fox and other similar spinners, magnum Wiggle Warts, jigs and herring. We tried them all during our two days of fishing. Our No. 6 Blue Foxes outfished everything else.

Other anglers used Blue Foxes but didn’t do well. We think the green polypropylene and marabou skirts we tie on the triple hooks. Chinooks like anything green.

It’s necessary to fish such lures as the Blue Foxes on or near the bottom most of the time. That’s where chinooks usually swim. Because the lures are weighted, they are easy to bounce over the bottom.

When chinooks will come up off the bottom, plugs, such as Wiggle Warts, are often effective. Because depths can change every few feet, it’s difficult to keep plugs down where they are effective.

Many anglers fish plugs off downriggers. One of their problems is to keep downrigger balls just above the bottom because of changing depths.

Anglers who fish herring either use downriggers to get the bait down to the salmon or attach weight above the bait. Herring, like lures, can be effective at times. However, a herring must be rigged properly and fished just fast enough to keep it rolling. We fished herring at least 4 hours without hooking a chinook.

When we returned to the launch ramp at 4 p.m. on the second day, a guide had just loaded his boat on his trailer. Instead of pulling the boat out so other anglers could use the ramp, he tossed three chinooks into the shallow water at the side of the boat and proceeded to gut them. Twenty minutes later he finally pulled his boat to the top of the ramp.

“What a jerk,” commented one of the anglers who had been waiting impatiently to take his boat out of the water. “He should have cleaned those fish up the river somewhere. Instead, he had to grandstand to impress other fishermen.”

A few days later Ostlund took a couple of friends fishing in the White Bluffs area. The three caught six chinooks, including Ostlund’s 41-pounder. Their lures: Magnum Wiggle Warts and Blue Foxes.

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The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Fenton Roskelley The Spokesman-Review