They’re not smelt at all. They’re eulachon, and in the vernacular of way back when, they were “hooligans.”
Most folks say their table quality is several steps down the ladder from the surf smelt jigged and raked in a number of locations in Puget Sound, and I have to agree with that assessment.
Still, many of us hold fond memories of winters past when huge runs of “smelt” made their way up the Columbia River and multi-week seasons were opened by the state Department of Fish and Wildlife for recreational dip-netting. Several tributaries also opened from time to time, but the king of southwest Washington smelt dipping was always the Cowlitz.
In years of smelt abundance, it wasn’t unusual to take your limit of fish in two or three swings of the long-handled dip net.
That’s a fair piece to go for a five-gallon bucket about a quarter-full of mediocre eating, but of course the trip was about more than that. It’s a family-friendly activity as long as you put flotation on the kids, and there’s something primal about throwing that net out there, dropping it to just above bottom, pushing it downstream faster than the current, and bringing it in at the end of the swing, hopefully heavy with a squirming, silver bounty.
For whatever reason, the runs dwindled until — in 2010 — the fish were declared threatened under the federal Endangered Species Act along the Pacific Coast. Since then, populations have recovered to the point that limited recreational and commercial seasons were opened last year, and are scheduled again this year. The 2014 openings offered excellent dip-netting at times in the Cowlitz, on the strength of a run of just under 200 million smelt, or about 16.8 million pounds.
To put the recreational and commercial harvests in perspective, sport dippers took an estimated 198,000 pounds of eulachon on the Cowlitz last year during two days of good fishing in early March. The mainstem Columbia commercial fishery took an estimated 18,600 pounds of fish during the month of February. The combined recreational and commercial harvests was a very small percentage of the run, and biologists say the fisheries have only a limited impact on the overall smelt return.
Washington and Oregon fish managers said this year’s run looks good, but probably not quite up to last year’s bonanza. The Washington season is scheduled on the Cowlitz for this Saturday and Feb 14, from 6 a.m. to noon both days. No fishing license is required, and the limit is 10 pounds. Check your favorite tackle shop for dip nets, which are currently selling in the $40 range.
Dip-netting takes place on the lower Cowlitz from its junction with the Columbia upriver to about Castle Rock, and there’s a lot of bank access. Coming from the north, the Castle Rock area is the closest, and state biologist Joe Hymer in Vancouver gives these directions: Take the Castle Rock exit off I-5 into downtown. If you go straight ahead at the light, you’ll hit a county park on the east side of the river that offers access. Turn right at the light, cross the bridge, and there’s access on either side of the old fairgrounds on your left. There’s also access upriver about a half-mile at the boat access.
Hymer said access also can be found at a lot of other places in and around Kelso/Longview: above and below the Allen Street Bridge in Kelso; the Carnival Market section in west Kelso, at the north side of town; Rocky Point, upstream from Carnival Market, and elsewhere.
River conditions are pretty good, Hymer said, with flows at Castle Rock at 12,800 cubic feet per second, slightly higher than the long-term average.
Springers
A few early spring chinook have been caught on the lower Columbia, and the first one has returned to the Cowlitz salmon hatchery, but the popular fishery below Bonneville Dam doesn’t usually get rolling until March.
The springer season is currently open up to the I-5 bridge, and fisheries managers in Washington and Oregon set other parameters for the fishery last week. The lower river season runs through April 10, and under guidelines for this season, anglers will be allowed 11,500 spring chinook before an updated run forecast is available in early May.
The 2015 projected run to the Columbia is 312,600 fish, just shy of last year’s banner run.
Anacortes derby
As most folks are aware by now, the big Anacortes Salmon Derby has been cancelled because of uncertainty about when the salmon season in Marine Area 7 will close. Derby spokesman Jay Field in Anacortes said tickets — which were scheduled to go on sale Feb. 1 — have “been consigned to the trash heap” because of word from the state of a severe curtailment of opportunity in Area 7.
In a release dated Jan. 27, Field said “The Anacortes derby was not the only casualty, as several others were affected as well. Roche Harbor was nearly cancelled; the month-long Frank Wilson Memorial Derby out of Friday Harbor was cancelled, and the fishing area available to participants in the Olympic Peninsula Salmon Derby out of Gardiner was curtailed.
“Going forward, the prospects of abbreviated, uncertain seasons could negatively affect the long-term viability of the Anacortes derby. The board of directors have decided to take the hatchet to the derby this year, and an uncertain season now and in the future just might have struck the death knell for this classic event.”
Olympic Peninsula derby
On the other hand, the Olympic Peninsula Salmon Derby out of Gardiner on Discovery Bay appears to be alive and well for its scheduled dates of Feb. 20-22. Mike Chamberlain at Ted’s Sport Center in Lynnwood said he talked with derby officials Dan Tatum and Norm Metzler, and neither saw any serious problems stemming from curtailments on the inner Sound.
Ted’s and Outdoor Emporium in Seattle are the only outlets for the $40 tickets on this side of the pond, Chamberlain said.
“Fishing has been pretty decent out that way,” he said, “at the winter hole off Port Angeles, a few coming from Discovery Bay, Kanem Point on the west side of Protection Island, the Sequim area and the offshore banks are all putting out fish.”
Chamberlain said he also had reports indicating commercial trollers in the Neah Bay area were doing well.
For more outdoors news, read Wayne Kruse’s blog at www.heraldnet.com/huntingandfishing.
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