It’s not rare, certainly, but it’s a little unusual to see so many early adult chinook being caught this time of year in the local blackmouth fishery. And regardless of where these fish are headed, local anglers have a shot at them through April 10 in Marine Area 8-2 (roughly Camano State Park to Possession Point, including Port Gardner and Possession Sound) and through April 15 in Marine Area 9 (Admiralty Inlet, Possession Bar, Point No Point).
Big fish? You bet. The first place chinook in last weekend’s Stanwood Eagles derby (worth $1,800) weighed 24 pounds, 11 ounces, boated by Woody Rosenbach off Onamac on north Camano Island. The second-place fish (worth $1,000) came from Hat Island, and weighed 18 pounds, 3 ounces, joining a fair sprinkling of 20-plus-pound chinook taken around Hat in the past couple of weeks.
Mike Chamberlain at Ted’s Sport Center in north Lynnwood (425-743-9505) reported that one of his employees nailed a 20-pounder on Possession Bar over the weekend.
But the blue ribbon goes to Tom and Kathy Nelson of Lake Stevens (tom@fishskagit.com), who nailed a gorgeous spring king of 27.5 pounds Sunday, on the afternoon tide change, just north of Hat Island.
“The port ‘rigger was bouncing the way it does in Sitka,” Tom Nelson said. “That fish just turned and burned. We got four great, smoking, runs out of her before she would agree to come aboard, and it turned out her eggs were in about the same stage of development as those in the springers we’ve been catching the last few days down on the Columbia. So it was an adult chinook, not a blackmouth.”
Nelson was fishing a whole herring rigged in a Pro-troll Roto-chip bait holder, at 100 feet.
John Martinis at John’s Sporting Goods in Everett (425-259-3056) said another man/wife team, regular customers, caught chinook of 12 and 18 pounds over the weekend. Nice fish, but it’s the fact that they were taken in what will be the “Tulalip bubble” later this year that’s most interesting.
“I’ve been told the Tulalips have been planting more summer chinook the past few years, and those fish have been, and will be, coming back earlier in the year than their fall chinook,” Martinis said.
So maybe these dandy kings are Tulalip fish. Or maybe they’re early individuals from a larger than usual run of chinook predicted by state Fish and Wildlife biologists to be due back to the Skagit, Stillaguamish, and Snohomish systems this summer.
“It could be any or all of those possibilities,” said Gary Krein, owner/skipper of All Star Charters in Everett (425-252-4188) and a recreational fishing representative to the North of Falcon season-setting process. “The Tulalips have been planting more summer fish, which returned early last year and are expected back even earlier this year. (state biologist) Curt Kraemer told me the Wallace (state hatchery) chinook came back earlier to the Skykomish last year and are expected to do so again this year. Add all that to larger runs expected in the Samish, Skagit and Stillaguamish, and it’s logical we’d be seeing a few of those early kings around.”
But while there are some bragging-size chinook out there for the next couple of weeks, don’t expect fast and furious action. Total numbers of blackmouth recently have been slow to dismal. Some 190 ticket holders in the Stanwood derby, for instance, weighed in only 18 fish on Saturday and 9 on Sunday. Checks by WDFW personnel at the Everett ramp have been running about one fish for every 10 anglers, roughly the success ratio found in the summer Tulalip bubble fishery.
Local trout: Could you hook and land a 14-pound rainbow on 6-pound test line, keeping it away from other anglers and out of the weeds along the edge of the lake? Lynn Dickson of Arlington did it Saturday, on Blackman’s Lake in Snohomish, but he needed the help of a few friends.
Dickson had been fighting the 33-inch triploid ‘bow for a good 20 minutes, according to D. Meledie Knopf, also of Arlington, when it became obvious to a couple of other anglers on the lake that he could use a hand. His canoe was being blown into the reeds, and his landing net wasn’t even close to large enough to handle the jumbo trout.
One of the samaritans held the canoe out of the weeds, while the other donated a larger net, Knopf said.
Warmer weather and continued plants of big, privately-raised trout, have improved action on Blackman’s and on Flowing Lake, the other water where a coalition of fishing clubs is concentrating its purchased fish. The third plant of the season is scheduled in the two lakes the first half of next week, most trout running 16 to 18 inches, but many also in the 4- to 10-pound range or, as Dickson would attest, larger.
Blackman’s and Flowing have also been planted by the state Fish and Wildlife Department, with hatchery rainbow running 8 to 12 inches. Other year-around local lakes already planted with hatchery trout include Ballinger, Cassidy, Chain, Goodwin, Martha (Warm Beach), Panther, Roesiger, and Silver, in Snohomish County, and Lone Lake in Island County.
Spring chinook on the Columbia: Biologist Joe Hymer, at the WDFW’s Vancouver office, still thinks predictions are close for a good spring chinook run up the Columbia this year, even though counts over Bonneville Dam are very late and very low. Only a couple of dozen fish a day are being counted, Hymer said, but fishing below the dam and in the Longview area has picked up substantially.
“The fish are there, and they’re moving upriver,” he said, “and it won’t be long, hopefully, until they show at Drano Lake and the mouth of the Wind.”
Commercial netters doubled their daily catch Monday night, Hymer said, taking more than 5,000 chinook in the mainstem Columbia, and that put them at their quota. The word came down at mid-day Tuesday that they were done in the lower Columbia for the season.
The lower Klickitat opens to sport fishing Saturday, on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Saturdays, although there will be few springers there to be had.
The Cowlitz is improving for a mix of chinook and steelhead, and a few of both species are also being caught in the Kalama and Lewis.
Hymer also mentioned that the statewide sturgeon annual limit drops from 10 fish per year to 5 today.
Wenatchee sockeye?: With all the talk of a sockeye season on Lake Washington this summer, anglers are asking about Lake Wenatchee. Joe Hymer (above) said the chance on a season there is a slim one, since the predicted run is 27,500 and the escapement goal is between 20,000 and 25,000. The numbers leave little wiggle room for a short season, Hymer said, although it could conceivably happen.
“If it does,” he said, “it will be the result of monitoring well into the run and then an opening by emergency regulation.”
Razor clams: Another tentative coastal razor clam season has been set, dependent, as usual, on state Health Department tests for marine toxins. Long Beach and Twin Harbors would open April 21 through 24, morning tides only, while Copalis, Mocrocks and Kalaloch will open April 22 through 24, also morning tides only.
Upper Columbia walleye: Brewster resident and guide Rod Hammons (starr@nwi.net; 509-689-2849) said now’s the time to fish walleye above Chief Joseph Dam, both by the numbers and for trophy-size, 10-pound-plus fish. He likes jigs and blade baits, and said top fishing should hold up for another month or so.
Yakima River springers: The middle section of the Yakima River opens to spring chinook on April 16, although few fish (from a late Columbia run) are expected to be available at the opener. The season will run through June 15, from Granger upstream to Roza Dam. WDFW biologist Jim Cummins in the Yakima office said the best fishing two years ago (there was no fishery last year) was in the area of Union Gap and just downstream.
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