OK folks, it's time for one of my twice-a-year flurries o'postings. The run looks a little weak this year, but I'm optimistic that I'll get into something or die trying!

Hit the mouth of the Yakima last night for an hour or so to no avail. Still getting my new boat figured out.

Anybody getting out there? Anybody want to go anywhere? Let's talk about fall Chinook!

AdiposeSoup,

I think I will be fishing on the Yakima River Tuesday. I fish up above W. Richland. Perhaps I will see some of our fellow anglers out on the River. This is usually the time of year the "flurries" start for posting.

I was out yesterday--fished above and below Ringold without any action. I only saw one fish caught all day, and that was around Taylor flat on a kwickfish. Nice lookin' fish though.

Well, I went out on last Sunday and the fishing was so abominable that I haven't been able to post about it till now. I didn't see a thing hooked and heard a rumor about one fish caught. It was really awful.

Any other reports?

I trolled off of Bateman Is. last Sunday; got slammed by a drive-by that broke off the 20# leader after burning the drag for 10-15 seconds. The Mrs couldn't pry the rod free from the holder 'till it was gone. I'm considering the Folbe rod holders that release upon lifting, but those suckers are spendy.

BTW, I lost a blaze orange magwart--it may be seen attached to a 40+ pound chinook. If found, please return...

Thanks,

Hey all, I am going to be at the Yakima river next Friday through Sunday. Maybe I will see some of ya out there. I will also be going back the following week. I figured if nothing panned out I might take a trip by the Tucannon for some early season Steelhead.

I will post how the trip went, hopefully with some pics to accompany. Keep the posts coming. You guys are all starting to scare me though with all these reports of O'fers and no catches reported anywhere. The only positive note I heard was from Dev88t a few weeks ago when he said they went 2-4 on the Yak.

I hope it gets going alot stronger over this next week.

RAE

That was the only real action I have had this fall too. Havent been out much the last week or so due to work, but plan on heading out this weekend. I will let you know how it goes.

Dev88T

Rae,

We are still early in the season. When the Salmon are gone, the steelhead will be strong. The weather is just now turning cold.

E-mann wrote:

BTW, I lost a blaze orange magwart--it may be seen attached to a 40+ pound chinook. If found, please return... Thanks,

HA HA.. Speaking of lost items.. If anyone catches a salmon with an abscess in his/her mouth, it most likely belongs to me. (The salmon, not the abscess)

Well, we managed to bang one today up above Ringold. Good thing too--I was starting to get a complex!

Sorry, no pictures yet.

Vernita fished pretty well this weekend. Of the 93 salmon we weighed in the salmon derby, seventy were at the Vernita weigh station, twenty at Ringold, and only four at Snyder street.

We managed to catch three Saturday and five on Sunday. Nothing huge, pretty much mid-teens through mid-twenties fish. Three were on downrigger/kwik, three were on diver/kwik, one on a mag wart, and one on an M2SP flatfish. All different colors. The biggest challenge is that there seems to be no pattern to the river flows this year... every time I think I detect a trend on when they're going to raise or lower the water level, it changes.

Starfish,

Thanks for the info. So is it the low water that's tough to fish or is it just that it changes so quickly it's hard to adjust? Are there tactics that help deal with the changing water conditions? Seems like kwicks and other plugs are a little more picky when it comes to finding the right current for the desired action, but I'm still pretty new to the trolling scene--it all still feels like guesswork to me.

IMHO it's the changes more than the absolute level that messes things up. In low water there are a few slots that I like to downrig deep with kwiks. In high water I like to tuck into eddies with mag warts and M2SP's. But there are exceptions to both. The main thing is that rising water makes the fish move and makes a lot of current; the front edge of a wave of rising water often triggers a good bite for a half hour or so. But when they blast it from 40K straight up to 130K it pretty much wipes out the fishing for a while. The best thing to do is race way downstream ahead of the wave and catch the front edge of it a few times, then race way back up above it when it drops again. Kinda spendy at $3 a gallon!

Rapidly dropping water is one of the toughest conditions. The fish often don't bite well, and/or you can't get enough action on the plugs. You'll often have to troll upstream instead of backtrolling to get the action you need.

One tip-- mag warts and M2SP's will work in just about any current speed. K16's need at least about 1.5 mph trolling speed (water speed, not ground speed) to dive properly, otherwise they'll float up instead of digging. If the current is very slack and you're trying to fish kwiks, either troll upstream or switch to K16X or K13X's which are less buoyant.

Not looking good for us Yakima River Anglers who haven't caught a Salmon or two. They are talking about the possibility of an emergency closure to avoid overharvest.

Read below.


The latest weekly creel report from WDFW Fish Biologist Paul Hoffarth indicates an estimated 731 chinook salmon (662 adults, 69 jacks) were harvested in the Hanford Reach of the Columbia River near the Tri-Cities. Anglers averaged one chinook for every 22 hours fished, he said, or roughly one-half chinook per boat. Total chinook harvest to date is 1,579 (1,419 adults, 160 jacks). In 2005, 3,665 chinook had been harvested through Oct 2. Angler effort has been slightly below last year's effort, he said.

Meanwhile, the fall chinook salmon harvest on the lower Yakima River east of Prosser and west of the Tri-Cities has been so high that the season's scheduled run through Oct. 22 could be curtailed. Hoffarth explained that this year's Yakima chinook run of about 2,500 fish is about one-third smaller than last year's, but the harvest of 297 fish to date is already more than three times greater than this time last year. Most of the catch has been near the Chandler hydroelectric powerhouse discharge area, which is about eight miles east of Prosser, just north of Interstate 82 off the Chandler Canal. Yakima River water is diverted from Prosser Dam to the Chandler facility. "The fish are so vulnerable there that we may be reaching an overharvest of fall chinook in the Yakima River," Hoffarth said. "We also have a high incidence of snagging in that area, and unless fish are hooked inside the mouth or on the head, they're illegal to possess." Snagging citations bring a $540 fine. Stay tuned for a possible emergency rule change about the length of this season.

On the bright side they finally closed off the chandler powerhouse to fishing. I went down to go fishing yesterday, and there are signs saying fishing is prohibited in this area. Basically they are calling it a damn, and you cannot fish within 400'. People used to just line up along those concrete walls and snag the heck out of them while they pool up where the water comes out of the powerhouse. The fish are so confused there that I have seen them literally jump out bounce off the the concrete wall and back into the water. Obviously the fish think it is a waterfall. So hopefully the WDFW keep this intact for next year too so we dont have to deal with the problem.

I hit the Yakima on Sunday all for nothing though. I did foul hook one fish that I broke off as to not tire it out too much. Then around 30 minutes later I hooked into another big fish on a spinner. The thing had my rod bent in half for a few minutes then pop. Broke off. I wasn't happy to say the least. On a slow year when you lose a fish it just kills you. I thought I must have had a bad spot in my line until I reeled in to find my swivel straightened out. I had used all of my heavy duty swivels and was using one that was too small. I wont let that happen again. As a matter of fact I am still mad at myself today! I also met RAE down there to show him the Yakima. He and his crew did manage one fish on saturday, but man is it ever slow this year. Anyone else hit the Yak last weekend?

Dev88T