We were all complaining about how cold it had been this spring, and all of a sudden we can start complaining about how hot it is. What a turnaround. The quick upturn in temperatures are being welcomed by fans of fishing for our warm water species but are coming too late to benefit the anglers who like to fish the Brewster Pool for salmon. I know a lot of folks are checking the fish counts over Bonneville Dam on a daily basis. I always do when the opening of salmon season gets near. It looks like we are going to have a pretty good season for summer salmon and the sockeye numbers are better than last year. I think we are going to have a great sockeye season on the Columbia. High water can be a real issue for those who fish below Wanapum Dam. The water spilling down the chute creates some huge standing waves.

A couple of years ago when we were having a heavy runoff, I ran up to Wells to fish for sockeye after a morning of salmon fishing at Chelan Falls. When we arrived, we found huge rollers in the eddy on the far side of the river below the dam. It was like being out in the ocean. We tried to fish and hooked one sockeye but lost it. Another fish hit and took 160 feet of line before it broke off. A big king had hit my sockeye gear and ran out into the heavy current and said, “bye bye.”

Salmon anglers are very concerned about the Brewster Pool. The cool weather we had this spring means there won’t be a thermal barrier in place at the mouth of Okanogan River. Usually, the very warm water from the Okanogan hits the cooler Columbia River the salmon will stay in the cooler water. The fish continue to move into the Brewster Pool and the fishing can be fantastic. This will impact anglers fishing for Chinook and sockeye. I suppose the good news is that there will be hordes of sockeye moving up the Columbia.

One of the more popular spots to fish for sockeye is below Rocky Reach Dam. This will most likely be impossible due to the very high flows and the amount of water being released. You can check on the flows below Rocky Reach by getting the free App on your phone, offered by Chelan County PUD. Just go to my website at www.fishingmagician.com and click on the cell phone photo on the right hand side of the Home Page. Follow the instructions in the link and you can always know that the river flows are at both Rocky Reach and Rock Island dams. People have been asking about the sockeye season on Lake Wenatchee. The forecast for the return is for a below escapement return. These fish do surprise us though, so don’t give up hope for a sockeye season on Lake Wenatchee. It usually doesn’t open until around the first of August, so there’s still time for the fish to show up. My fishing buddy James Lebow and I have had some good days fishing Billy Clapp Lake, near Soap Lake. We have fished for walleye and kokanee in the summer, and he found both species there recently. He hooked but didn’t land a couple of big kokanee and put four nice walleye in the live well. That’s all it took to get me to join him and Ryan Harris for a trip there last Thursday. We spent the first two hours trolling for kokanee, and although we were marking a bunch of fish along the shore above the big basalt island, we only got one good bite on our Kokabow gear. We blamed that on the very brisk breeze that we weren’t expecting. The wind also made it difficult for James to run the boat when we ran to the upper end to fish for walleye. Keeping the boat straight against a side wind was a chore. James always amazes me with his ability to drive the boat, watch the depth sounder and run two rods.

We were getting a lot of bites in the upper end while trolling our bottom bouncers but getting a lot of hang ups on the very snaggy bottom of Billy Clapp. We did better when the wind settled down. We put three walleye in the live well and left before the weather got too hot.July first is the opening day of salmon season on the upper Columbia River in many areas.

Hundreds of anglers will be heading for their favorite salmon fishing spots and dealing with very high water conditions. This will make fishing difficult for both summer salmon and sockeye. Last Saturday, I joined my friend Mike McKee on his new boat. Fishing for walleye we started our day on Barker Flats on Banks Lake, where we didn’t even get a bite. We ran over to the sand flats below Steamboat Rock and landed just one small walleye. We trolled bottom bouncers and even crank baits off the Million Dollar Mile without success. Not even a smallmouth, which is unusual. So, at about 2:30 I ran us across the lake to the far shore and we switched to fishing for smallmouth. I wish we would have stared earlier, because unlike the walleye, the smallmouth were hungry and hit everything we threw toward the shore. Senkos and tube baits worked great. I didn’t know that Mike, Joe Moriarty and Paul Hill were keeping track of our catch, but Mike told me that we caught and released 40 smallmouth in an hour and a half.

Sunday was a beautiful day in Leavenworth, and my wife wanted to get out on the water. I had some bass gear in my truck already, so I hooked up the boat and we ran up to Fish Lake. When I tossed a Senko across a sunken tree and slowly slid it back to me. Wham! A nice largemouth grabbed my bait. Soon after, I was casting near one of the old docks and another big largemouth sucked in my Senko. Great fun. This week’s photo is of one of the largemouth from Fish Lake. I wish all you salmon anglers good luck on the opener!