Anglers Ready Selves

Anglers may catch as many as 5,000 chinook salmon along the Hanford Reach of the Columbia River this fall. If they do, the year 2000 catch will be the largest in years.

However, they will have plenty of company, especially toward the latter part of September. Every angler who wants to catch a big salmon knows that the fall run is expected to be the largest in at least 10 years.

With one exception, the Reach will look like Fishtrap Lake on an opening day. All the anglers on the Columbia will fish from boats; at Fishtrap, hundreds fish from a resort’s docks and along the shore, as well as from boats.

Fishermen will launch every type of boat, from 12-foot cartoppers to 20-foot cruisers, at the White Bluffs and Vernita Bridge launch areas.

They’ll troll such plugs as Magnum Warts, drift big Blue Fox (Vibrax) spinners, jig heavy fish-shaped jigs and try to get smelt, salmon eggs and even nightcrawlers before the noses of traveling chinooks. Many veteran anglers now use downriggers to keep their bait and lures down near the bottom; some anchor their boats; others back troll.

Catch rates will vary, ranging from one in about 20 anglers in early September to one of every half dozen or so when the run peaks the first week in October. Even though there won’t be many chinooks in the Reach in early September, numerous anglers will spend days on the river.

The chinooks are still bright in September and they are in excellent condition. By October, they’ll be a dark brownish red as they approach the time to spawn. They don’t taste nearly as good as they do in September. Some anglers release the dark chinooks they hook; others have the fish smoked.

Although the Reach will be crawling with salmon by October, the fish won’t be easy to catch. Once a salmon enters fresh water, it no longer is interested in eating. It swims up the Columbia to spawn. However, it can be coaxed into taking a variety of lures and bait.

Experienced anglers always seem to catch chinooks. Most novices rely almost entirely on Magnum Warts.

To the consternation of anglers, chinooks develop lockjaw on some days. On others, they seem to be a little on the stupid side and anxious to commit suicide.

Anglers started catching chinooks, cohos and steelhead Aug. 1 near the mouth of the Columbia River and along the lower Columbia River. The Hanford Reach section above the Tri-Cities will open Aug. 16.

Fisheries officials have predicted that 329,000 chinooks will enter the Columbia this fall. Anglers will be targeting 208,000 upriver brights. Several thousand have already been caught in the Buoy 10 and Drano Lake area and near the mouth of the Deschutes River.

Because of the harvest rate limits, the sport fishing between Buoy 10 and the Tongue Point-Rocky Point line is expected to end by Labor Day.

Large numbers of upriver brights are intermingled with Snake River chinooks, which are listed as threatened under the Federal Endangers Species Act. The National Marine Fisheries Service determined that no more than 31.29 percent of the upriver brights can be caught to ensure that enough Snake River fish reach spawning grounds.

Under orders from federal court Judge Malcolm Marsh, Oregon, Washington and federal officials and tribes agreed to an allocation of the chinooks. Under the agreement, the Warm Springs, Yakama, Umatilla and Nez Perce tribes are allowed 23 percent of 208,000 chinooks. Oregon and Washington sports anglers get a total of 8.25 percent.

The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife said Buoy 10 area sports anglers are permitted to catch 9,000 chinooks. That quota is expected to be filled either before the end of this month or in early September.

Because chinooks that move up the Columbia above the mouth of the Snake River don’t affect the Snake run, no quota has been set for the Columbia above the highway 395 bridge at Pasco. Anglers will be permitted to keep two adult chinooks a day.

However, the limit for the lower Columbia has been changed from two adult chinooks a day to two salmon, only one of which can be an adult chinook.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has taken control of more than 50,000 acres of land along the Columbia in the Hanford Reach area from the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife since the last chinook season. The acreage extends from just above Ringold Springs to the Vernita Bridge. The federal agency already managed thousands of acres in the Saddle Mountain area.

The federal agency has informed the state FWD there will be no major changes in the management of the 50,000 acres. Anglers will continue to launch boats at White Bluffs and at Vernita.

Washington’s fish and game agency will continue to enforce fishing and hunting regulations. However, it’s possible there will be an increase in the number of federal enforcement officers.

It’s now apparent that the Hanford Reach will be teaming with chinooks by mid-September, that anglers can count on long lines of boats at the launching sites before dawn and that they’ll have to get into a line when they decided to leave the river.