I hope everyone had a safe and fun Labor Day Weekend. This is the last major holiday of the summer, and I sure look forward to the fall season. There are some many great fishing opportunities in the fall. There is a lot of fishing and other fun ahead of us.
I recently reported about a bass fishing trip to Moses Lake. It was a fun way to fill the time before the fall salmon fishing season. Here are a couple of ways to have some fun while we wait for salmon fishing. Last Friday my brother in-law Tom Verschuren and I went up to Fish Lake, near Lake Wenatchee. It was a clear and calm day, and the perch were cooperating. We had our first limit of 25, 8-inch perch in less than an hour. It took a little longer to get the second limit. The bite is definitely best in the early morning.

We just tied a hook about 10 inches above two split shot and baited the hook with a chunk of nightcrawler. We looked for schools on the depth sounder and put the Minn Kota Ultera down in anchor mode and went at it. It’s a ton of fun and now I have the makings for a couple of perch dinners—Yum! The next day four of us and Tom’s niece Mable, who is seven years old, went to the renovated Discovery Center at Rocky Reach Dam. Mable loved “steering a steamboat down the Columbia” and we all enjoyed the displays and exhibits. We also got to see several big kings moving up the fish ladder from the viewing room.

The most exciting fishery in our region is about to kick into gear. It’s the fall salmon run on the Hanford Reach. This year over 130,000 Chinook are expected to return to this stretch of the Reach, and enough coho salmon to allow anglers to keep them as part of your daily limit. The limit is six fish, of which two may be adult salmon. Both hatchery and wild fish may be retained. Anglers have the option to use barbed hooks this year.

Fishing is slow here right now, but over 16,000 fall Chinook passed over Bonneville Dam last Friday. Also, if you aren’t a subscriber to my free E-Letter you will want to sign up right away. I will be dedicating much of the Fall issue to how and where to fish for fall kings on the Reach. I will include detailed descriptions of the tackle to use and maps of the different sections that hold good numbers of fish. To sign up for the free E-Letter, go to my website and click on the button at the top left hand side of the page. This week’s photo is an old one of me with my first fall king from Vernita.

A recent action by the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife prohibits all angling in the northwest portion of the Drano Lake, identified by fishing boundary signs located on the north and west shorelines of Drano Lake. The closure to steelhead fishing began Sept. 4, 2021, until further notice. This new rule closes Drano Lake to angling for all species.  

Steelhead fishing and retention throughout Drano Lake was closed from July through October 2021, based on low preseason forecasts of summer steelhead returning to the Columbia River. Subsequently, an additional boat angling restriction was implemented in a sub-area of Drano Lake to address steelhead angling closure violations observed by fisheries enforcement. While the boat angling restriction has been effective, enforcement officers have observed increased targeting of steelhead along shoreline areas. The need for this rule is the result of continued angling violations in the area, increasing concern for summer steelhead returning to the Columbia River in record low numbers, and the need to manage sport fishing impacts to ESA-listed stocks within the limits established in the 2018-2027 US v. Oregon Management Agreement.

Amid concern about record low numbers of steelhead moving up the Columbia River so far this year, state fishery managers from the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) have announced new restrictions on steelhead fishing in the Snake River, as well as several Snake and Columbia River tributaries.

The preseason forecast for summer steelhead traveling up the Columbia River was 89,200 fish, but only 36,452 fish had passed Bonneville Dam on the lower Columbia River as of Aug. 31, a record low number (the lowest count to date since Bonneville Dam construction) and just over half the 5-year average of 68,974 fish for the same date.
As a result of these low returns, fishery managers have reduced hatchery steelhead limits in part of the Snake River and Grande Ronde River, while closing steelhead fishing on other sections of the Snake River, as well as the Touchet, Tucannon, and Walla Walla rivers. In addition, all areas of the mainstem Columbia River were closed to steelhead fishing as of Sept. 1.

I strongly suggest that anglers interested in steelhead fishing log onto the WDFW website and click on “news” at the top of the Home Page. There are a couple of news releases that provide details on the closures to fishing on the lower Columbia River and the Snake River and its tributaries.

There are changes in the seasons that come each fall when some of our area lakes will close to fishing. The lakes that I am going to mention will be open for the month of September, so you will want to get at them before the end of the month. There are many lakes in the Seep Lakes Wildlife Area which is part of the Columbia Wildlife Refuge. This area is south of Highway 262 and north of Othello. There are well over a dozen popular lakes in this area of Grant County, and you should check the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife Sportfishing Rules pamphlet to see if some of your lakes are affected. Other lakes closing at the end of the month in Grant County are Park, Blue, Perch and Deep Lakes in the Sun Lakes Park area. In Spokane County Fish Lake and Fishtrap Lake close September 30th.

It would be a good idea to review the regulations for Sprague Lake for the fall, and Coffee Pot Lake to the east is also closing September 30th. Cooler temperatures will make trout fishing in these lakes a good prospect, and spiny ray fishing will also improve.