Was excited to hit the Columbia for the first time this year for that tasty Spring chinook! Drove down last night with my daughter who is visiting from her Disney cruise job for some time off and spent the night at my buddy's house in Longview. His daughter was also visiting from Central WA U so we decided to do father-daughter Springer trip ( plus 4 rods are better then 2!)

We launched at Puget Island by Cathlamet at 6:30am and headed up to the tip of the island to start our troll as low tide was over at 6:45 so knew it was going to be a trolling show today. Had rods in the water by 7:15 with beautifully cured cut- plug herring behind my buddy's favorite Short bus flashers and started the troll. Our daughters were bundled up in the front of the boat as it was a chilly morning on the Columbia!

Trolled the length of the island until around 10:30 and did not see a single net come out from all the other boats on the troll including about 4 guide boats. The girls needed to thaw out so headed back to the launch and let them thaw out in the truck with the heater running while Craig and I set up for round 2!

This time we headed to Clifton channel for the incoming tide and spent the next 3 hours trolling around with all the others and again, not a single fish caught! Needless to say, a very slow day on the Columbia ( at least where we fished)

Oh well, that is springer fishing in March but of course, they will be closing the river again this year on April 5th just as it starts to heat up! I will be giving it another shot next Friday I hope! Stopped by Riffe on our way home and didn't even take a cast at it looked dead and the water lever is down about 40 feet like others have been reporting so took the long way home by highway 7 and Alder lake! It looked great and not a single boat out there so may have to give that a shot someday.

nvan

3/28/2013 9:49:00 AM

I was looking at Bonneville fish counts and noticed only 152 chinook have gone over the fish ladder. Doesn't look like the fish have even gotten up to Longview yet. Good luck next time.

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