Upriver Bright Methods Evolve

Fishermen are either innovators or followers.

The innovators are never content with standard techniques for hooking fish. They’re always experimenting to discover more productive techniques. They develop what become standards.

The followers never question standard methods. They follow the crowd.

Because of the innovators, techniques for catching the big chinook salmon along the Hanford Reach of the Columbia River have evolved from trolling and drifting big plugs to sophisticated techniques involving the use of downriggers to get herring and plugs 20 to 50 feet deep.

If you join the mob between the White Bluffs and Priest Rapids Dam during the next two to three weeks - the peak of the “upriver bright” salmon run in the section a few miles above and below the Vernita bridge - you’ll learn anglers are using everything from magnum Wiggle Warts to herring.

If you fished for the salmon in the 1980s, you’ll be surprised to see large numbers of anglers who use downriggers. It’s possible that more than half the fishermen now depend on downriggers to get and hold their bait and lures down to where the salmon rest.

When fishing for the chinooks, some of which weigh more than 40 pounds, became popular several years ago, the plug of choice was the magnum Wiggle Wart. The plug was so much in demand that stores couldn’t keep them in stock.

Wiggle Warts accounted for most of the salmon and steelhead caught in those days. Some anglers, of course, caught salmon on other plugs, including the Flatfish and Hot N’Tots. A few used big, heavy fish-shaped jigs to reach chinooks in deep water.

Enter the innovators. A few discovered that the salmon could be suckered into taking Blue Fox spinners. They tried to keep their discovery secret, even removing the spinners and tying on plugs when they returned to the boat-launching ramps.

But, as always happens, the word got out and the rush was on to buy Blue Fox spinners. The innovators and followers invested heavily in the expensive lures. Several Spokane-area anglers spent more than $100 each on various sizes and colors of Blue Fox spinners.

The Blue Foxes caught salmon, but they also got some anglers into trouble. At the time, Fisheries Department rules said fishermen could use triple hooks on unweighted plugs. However, if they used weighted lures, such as the Blue Fox, only a single hook could be used.

Many anglers didn’t remove the triple hooks from their Blue Foxes and similar-weighted lures. A few paid big fines.

Fishermen no longer have to remove the triple hooks from their weighted lures. New regulations for this year permit the use of single, double and triple hooks on any lure.

While a high percentage of fishermen were drifting Blue Fox and other lures through chinook holding and migrating water, the innovators were continuing to experiment with downriggers and methods of reaching the salmon in deep water. Their sonars told them that many salmon hugged the bottom in water 30 to 50 feet deep.

Some also began using herring, the natural food of the adult chinooks. They learned that the salmon, which don’t feed in fresh water, would mouth the herring when they wouldn’t take a plug or spinner.

The best among the innovators have state-of-the-art equipment, including sonars, downriggers, good-sized boats powered with 80- to- 115-horsepower engines and tackle boxes full of everything from Wiggle Warts to Point Wilson Darts. The latter are jigs that have become popular the last two or three years.

The experts back-troll herring, spinners and plugs, keeping the engine’s propeller spinning just fast enough to allow the boat to move extremely slowly downstream. Because they’re nearly always near other boats, they must concentrate every moment or risk entanglements. When a salmon takes herring or lure, fishermen maneuver their boats out of the traffic.

This year’s run of upriver brights won’t be as large as those of the last few years. However, there will be enough salmon between the White Bluffs and Priest Rapids dam for fair to good fishing.

Most anglers will launch their boats at the White Bluffs ramp and at Vernita bridge. The road to the White Bluffs ramp is full of chuck holes, but is passable. Launching at the Vernita bridge can be difficult for those who have good-sized boats and under-powered, two-wheel-drive passenger cars.

Hundreds of big chinooks, as well as some steelhead, will be caught the next few weeks along the Hanford Reach. The innovators and experts will catch most of them. Inexperienced anglers will go home skunked most of the time.

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