MORE THAN JUST A CHINOOK SHOW

Coho are coming on strong in Mid-Columbia fall salmon fisheries, and this should be a good month to catch them and late upriver brights.

By Jeff Holmes

Sometimes it seems like no matter what they do, state salmon managers can’t catch a break from the angling community. The 2022 salmon bounty on the Columbia River is a classic example of this. No matter how knowledgeable or ignorant an angler is, he or she (usually he) thinks he or she knows better and that the biologists who control our seasons and make predictions are bumbling fools. Usually it’s the other way around, but truth be told, there are some salmon managers and also political decisions and pressures from on high in Olympia, Salem, and Washington DC that are super stupid. Similarly, federal laws our state managers must follow draw plenty of fire from anglers who think it’s merely the ignorance of biologists that lead to fisheries restrictions.

Take the almost-two-week closure of the Lower Columbia last month as a great example of this. It was entirely driven by state managers observing federal laws. Most of our salmon managers are anglers and good people, and it’s sometimes painful to watch them take constant crap on social media, at boat launches and in sporting goods stores from folks who are typically well removed from the realities of navigating complicated federal and state laws, court decisions and lawsuit threats, highly altered ecosystems, largely unchecked guiding and increasingly lethal and numerous sport anglers. All of these factors and many more make managing and predicting fish runs harder than ever.

I for one am super pleased that managers “screwed up” and completely misforecast salmon runs in 2022 and that way more spring, summer and fall Chinook

Salmon fishing is far from done on the MidColumbia. Coho join in on the fall Chinook fun in waters that stretch from Drano Lake past the Deschutes and Umatilla Rivers to the Hanford Reach and into the Snake as far as Hells Canyon. Here, Chad Dawson fights a salmon at the Klickitat River mouth on an October day that would serve up limits of silvers and kings for a guided crew. (JERRY HAN)

have returned than predicted, along with record and near-record runs of sockeye and coho. I wish they had similarly screwed up forecasting steelhead returns. The springers, summers and sockeye are all zombies or dead at this point, but there are still plenty of bright fall Chinook and many more bright coho still available to salmon anglers above Bonneville. For those like me who plan to cash in on the 2022 bounty of salmon throughout October and even into November for coho, here is a short overview of where to go for both kings and coho. Make no mistake that the later in October we get the more fireengine-red salmon we will encounter, but enough fresh fish will continue to cross Bonneville throughout October to result in excellent to good fishing. This is especially true for coho.

KLICKITAT, UMATILLA, HANFORD REACH COHO

With over 75,000 coho over Bonneville at the midway point of September, we are trending to see well over 100,000 fish cross the dam this fall, an absurd number owed to excellent ocean conditions but also to expanded hatchery runs bolstered by inland tribes such as the Nez Perce, Yakamas and Umatillas, and also by nontribal managers under decree from legislators to make more orca food. Whatever. Bring on the coho! October will bring some of the best coho angling we have ever seen above Bonneville to several fisheries, some of which I won’t discuss since they are far upstream and since I am interested in chromers and think you should be too. One fishery I will skip that does account for plenty of chromers is Drano Lake, which should not be overlooked.

Without a doubt, the Klickitat is the crown jewel for coho above Bonneville, whether that’s in the river itself or in the wildly popular fishery at the mouth in its bottom half mile and in the Columbia. Enough fresh “B-run” coho will show here to keep the fishing going well into November, but the Klickitat’s peak is definitely in October, and the freshest, chromiest fish will be found in the Columbia, especially the later into the month we get. Best accessed from Mayer State Park in Oregon or from an unimproved but solid launch in Lyle on the Washington side, the fishery at the mouth of the Klickitat produces lots of limits of fish that average 6 to 9 pounds but with plenty of fish larger than that and some extending into the high teens.

A wide variety of tactics work here; I have had luck trolling plugs, trolling and casting spinners, twitching jigs and fishing eggs. Huge numbers of fish will lie on the several-hundred-yard-long

Coho are an increasingly viable Mid-Columbia fall fishery, thanks to strong tribal restoration and state supplementation efforts. Austin Han caught this one near Tri-Cities two seasons ago. New production at Ringold Springs Hatchery in the Hanford Reach is adding to returns bound for Upper Columbia tributaries. (JERRY HAN)

No doubt that the flesh of fall salmon degrades more rapidly than that of spring and summer fish, especially the later in October we get, but even several hundred miles above the ocean, Columbia coho and Chinook can still cut well this month. (JERRY HAN)

shelf just off of the channel marker where the Klick dumps into the Columbia, and many boats concentrate here. Don’t be afraid to go looking for fish away from the crowd here, especially downstream, but always note that there is a large concentration of coho off the shelf that go on and off the bite throughout the day. Fishing a good coon shrimp on a 3.5 bladed prawn spinner behind either a rotating or triangle flasher can be lethal here and results in bycatches of Chinook.

Fishing in the bottom half-mile of the Klickitat can be very good too, although it’s close quarters and can be crowded and competitive. Staying out in the Columbia is the best option for most, and it’s a relatively easy fishery to learn. Chrome fish continue to trickle into the mouth until late November, and fishing over a relatively small number of fish can still be excellent.

Over the last decade, the Umatilla Tribe and Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife have done a solid job of establishing a large run of coho in the Umatilla River. It is plagued by low flows and access issues, but I have floated the river in a raft for coho in the past after securing access and have caught fish.

To me, the real opportunity here is at the mouth of the river in the Columbia and in the first several hundred yards of the river. Fish here are often chrome and willing to bite. Throwing Vibrax spinners or fishing eggs under bobbers are both effective from shore, as is trolling small plugs, spinners and Super Baits in the Columbia at its mouth in the town of Umatilla. Bank options exist in Umatilla in the slow-moving water below the rapids downstream from Three-Mile Dam, but the mouth at the Columbia is best fished from a boat. Launches exist across the Columbia at Plymouth State Park or less than a mile upstream at the Umatilla Marina in Oregon.

Fishing is solid throughout the month of October, but does not hold up as well late into the fall like it does on the Klickitat.

A large return of coho is expected to return to the Hanford Reach this fall at the Ringold Hatchery, and TriCities anglers are chomping at the bit for these fish, which are the larger, later-returning B-run coho. This will be the second year of returns, but more and larger (two-salt) fish are expected this year. Released notionally as food for southern resident killer whales, the coho will at least end up on some dinner tables.

Along with the standard trolling techniques employed on the Hanford Reach, anglers should carry twitching jigs and Vibrax and other casting spinners. Fishing slightly above Ringold, around the hatchery creek itself, and downstream of Ringold in the excellent eddies and slow-moving backwaters of the free-flowing Columbia are good ideas. Watch for surface action in these areas and be prepared to experiment to figure out this new run. A handful of anglers did quite well at Ringold last year, and this year is expected to be much better. Coho will also certainly be caught incidentally by Chinook anglers at Ringold in October, but actually targeting these fish might result in more chrome fish with better table fare as more and more Hanford Reach kings move into spawning colors and their flesh degrades throughout the month.

There are, of course, other opportunities for upriver coho – Icicle Creek, Idaho’s Clearwater River and

OREGON WASHINGTON

EUGENE

Maxxum Marine

(541) 686-3572 maxxummarine.com PORTLAND

Sportcraft Marina

(503) 656-6484 sportcraftmarina.com EVERETT

Performance Marine

(425) 258-9292 perform-marine.com MOUNT VERNON

Master Marine Boat Center, Inc.

(360) 336-2176 mastermarine.com SHELTON

Verle’s Sports Center

(877) 426-0933 verles.com

the Oregon side of the Grande Ronde River – and some of these might be great to try, but I’m suspicious of table fare the further upriver coho swim.

REACH, KLICK, DESCHUTES, SNAKE CHINOOK

The Hanford Reach is home to a huge, underpredicted run of fish to the gravel in the river and lesser but strong numbers to Ringold and Priest Rapids Hatcheries. Fresh kings will continue to return to the Reach throughout October, but with every day more kings are adorned with their spawning colors, with all of their energy and goodness leaving their flesh and going into their gonads. Still, plenty of great fishing/ catching opportunities exist in October, although the upper stretch of the Reach from Priest Rapids Dam to the old Hanford town site and wooden power lines closes at the end of fishing on October 15. Meanwhile, the river below the powerlines is technically open for all salmon through December 31.

In terms of catch rates, the best at the Hanford Reach occur in October, but a lot of red and purple kings get retained by both private and guide boats during this time. I’ve also seen gorgeous, red-cutting kings well into October. Because of dam operations and reliably unreliable spikes in river level, be prepared to troll flashers and Super Baits in low water and to back down Magnum Warts, other plugs, Spin-N-Glos and bait, and other backtrolling presentations when velocities increase.

Fresh Chinook roll into the Klickitat throughout October, and targeting the deep water in the Columbia off of the shelf at the mouth of the river is a good idea. Troll downstream approximately 2.5 mph and upstream approximately 1.5 mph, using heavy leads to get rotating flasher and Super Bait combos within 4 to 6 feet of the bottom. Some large and surprisingly bright fish are caught throughout the month here, especially earlier in October.

Upstream, the mouth of the Deschutes produces pretty well in the first two weeks of October using similar tactics, but focus on doing strictly a downstream troll. Like at the Klick mouth, chasing bottom with lures that puke bait is the best way to catch kings as water temps drop and salmon numbers thin.

The Snake River is home to increasing numbers of fall kings – the mid-September count at Lower Granite Dam was the most on record back to its creation in 1975 – and good fishing occurs at the Lyons Ferry Hatchery, in and around the Lewis and Clark Valley, and up into Hells Canyon. Anglers face the same challenges with declining table fare the later in the month it gets, but there are plenty of fall kings to catch in all of these places throughout October 2022. NS

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