Braving the Brewster flotilla for sockeye

BREWSTER, Wash. – The rod doubles over and three men race to separate positions in the confined space of a boat.

Shouted instructions mix with adrenaline. It’s on.

Finally, an aqua-green flash presents itself as the salmon sees the boat and makes a run to its right.

Chaos. More shouts.

The salmon pulls across another line. Disaster threatens.

The rotating hand guides the sockeye back into the clear. The pressure of the line forces the fish into the surface wash near the boat.

A stab of the long-handled net, and contact. Lift. Settle.

The sockeye’s great run has ended to the roars of victory.

It’s the promise of that moment that lures hundreds of anglers each year to the fruit-bearing Brewster, Washington, for the sockeye run of July and August.

Restoring the run

That spectacle was made possible as part of a two-decade cooperation between governments and local tribes that have restored a run which virtually had gone away.

On the Canadian side, the sockeye return got a boost when tribal leaders, who are part of the eight-tribe Okanagan Nation Alliance, built hatcheries to restore the sockeye.

They worked with their ancestral counterparts, the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Indian Reservation in Washington, along with state and federal agencies that manage the dams on the Columbia.

It’s one of few success stories in a tortured conflict between the need for hydroelectric power and the life-sustaining historical runs of salmon in the Northwest.

The salmon caught at Brewster hit the Pacific Coast and eventually pass through nine hydroelectric dams to reach their spawning waters of Osoyoos Lake, which straddles the U.S.-Canada border north of Oroville.

Efforts are ongoing to return the fish even further north into British Columbia at Okanagan Lake.

Those lakes, which are crucial for providing sockeye spawning opportunities, are all linked by the Okanogan River, which dumps into the Columbia River at Brewster.

The pool

Just east of Brewster, tens of thousands of fish swim in long circles in the cold water of the Columbia River waiting for the correct conditions to sprint north to their final destinations.

For example, the surface temperature of the water of the Columbia on July 15 was 60-62 degrees. But the water flowing out of the Okanogan River was 72-74 degrees.

According to the U.S. Corps of Engineers, about 332,000 sockeye passed through Bonneville Dam as of July 13. Of those, more than 84,000 had passed Wells Dam, located just downstream from Brewster by the time we arrived.

The salmon taste the Okanogan River, but they wait for pulses of cold water, usually from a thunderstorm, before racing north to their home waters.

Until they do, boats and fish stack up and anglers troll over the top of those schools of fish hoping to entice strikes.

Blowing up Brewster

The fishing trip began with a mad dash from Spokane on July 14 with me, Spokesman-Review photographer Tyler Tjomsland and Timothy Note, who takes friends on hunting and fishing outings when he’s not arguing cases in court.

It was Tjomsland’s first salmon pursuit despite his growing up in Longview. Note , who grew up pursuing salmon in Oregon  , has been hauling my few salmon-catching-skills to Brewster for years.

We joined the confusion to get on the water Friday evening, followed by the next-to-impossible quest to find parking.

Once accomplished, we found just enough space to beach the boat in the cove next to the launch and then proceeded to set up for the night.

Note’s boat allowed room for two cots and we fashioned a third bed by parking a cooler between two seat cushions.

The Brewster trip rarely includes comfort. Or much sleep.

That was compounded by the voices of excited anglers, stereos and dudes testing their boat motors well past midnight.

At 3:45 a.m., Note’s alarm, which sounded like a children’s lullaby, awoke us to bedlam.

The waterborne pandemonium is difficult to comprehend.

Boat-hitched trucks lined the approaching roadway for half a mile. Watercraft glided through the dark, forcing their way into the open to run out for the morning bite.

After we glided out of the bay, Note dumped fuel into his Yamaha outboard and the 200-horse-power engine exploded into action.

It’s a free-for-all, literally, for anyone with a craft that will float (and some are more willing than others to challenge that definition).

The race to the pool in the dark is a bumpy affair with the wakes of a 100 motors churning up the surface.

Boats race in, dump speed and immediately turn into the floating parade of trolling rods, that mostly pull flashers, ball sinkers and two hooks tipped with the tails of colored and flavored shrimp.

The scene is surreal.

The dark surface of the Columbia River transforms into a sea of red and green navigation lights that create an unnatural, but awesome, spectacle.

A few scouting reports indicated anglers were easily boating their four-fish limits up until Friday, when the bite slowed.

That continued Saturday. We watched dozens of fish landed everywhere around us without a single hookup.

The flotilla

The boats that make up the Brewster pack are a diverse and eclectic mix.

The craft include large-radar-equipped seagoing vessels down to one brave soul who trolled a line behind a canoe as he paddled just outside of the madness.

Most of the crafts are versions of V-hulled aluminum boats that include smaller engines, called kickers, that provide efficient speeds for trolling.

The longer boats denote the guides, who have anywhere from six to eight paying customers with one line each.

Each guide uses a one-gloved hand to hold the tiller of the motor, and the other to hold their phones as they talk to each other about depths, colors and secret sauces.

When you enter the flotilla, all boaters mostly try to follow established lines and follow the same speed, lest they run in the boat ahead or slow the procession behind them.

Tempers and arguments sometimes flare as boats pass within feet of each other for hours.

One angler showed up on Sunday in a 40-year-old aluminum Starcraft that featured a standard patio umbrella to provide him, and his comatose buddy, shade.

The boater held his motor tiller with one hand and the unfastened umbrella in the other.

He was impervious to the fact that two of his four fishing poles were snapped broken as he trolled past.

On Sunday, July 16, we finally found some luck.

We landed our first fish at 6:30 a.m. and had three by 7:30. Eventually, we ended another scorching-hot day with seven sockeye.

When we got to the launch, we found Joe Fucigna, who works for the Washington Department of Fish and Game.

Fucinga emerged from his car’s air conditioning long enough to get a salmon count. He had been there for two days logging the catch and counting boats.

“This is the busiest Saturday of the year,” he said as boaters secured boats and others brought in empty trailers. “This is a big boost to the local economy. The guides bring in a lot of people.”

Harlan McCord, 73, of Tacoma, entered the flotilla on Sunday for the first time. He chose to avoid the morning madness of anglers racing for the early bite.

“We’re here for the next week,” McCord said.

He’s part of the local effort sponsored by The Fallen Outdoors to give a fishing opportunity to veterans.

“We got three fish” on July 16, McCord said. “But, we had a good time. It’s called fishing, not catching.”

Mike Bechtel, 52, of Moses Lake, was fishing with McCord. He, too, was part of the advanced guard for The Fallen Outdoors event.

“I think we have like 100 veterans coming” July 22. “The idea is to get them a chance to catch salmon,” he said. “Brewster has donated the park. Other donations will allow us to feed everybody.”

Asked how he fared on the water, Bechtel replied: “Brutal. But that’s life.”