Steelhead on the Cowlitz

Published 12:01 am Thursday, March 24, 2011

The spring steelhead run on the Cowlitz is in, according to Mike Greenleaf of Everett. Greenleaf, Kurt Stahl, and two others from the area took Stahl’s new boat down to the big southwest Washington river over the weekend and nailed four fish between 7 and 14 pounds, side drifting from the clay banks downstream.

Greenleaf said the party saw other fish caught, in the hatchery area and at the clay banks.

Greenleaf also had an interesting factoid concerning the geoduck market. The south Puget Sound commercial geoduck harvest is underway, he said, with a quota of 35,000 pounds of the big clams, most of which are apparently sold to Japan. He said the quake/tsunami disaster has cut the market price for Washington geoducks from $15 per pound to $8 per pound — still quite a bit of money for a clam.