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Fishing for Chinook salmon continues to be good on Lake Couer d'Alene, and there are several debies going on through the winter. Here an angler trolls the shoreline opposite Higgens Point toward the south end of the lake.
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Coho have shown up in great numbers on the Icicle River. Here you can see a bunch of them swirling near the shore below the hatchery. Jigs and spoons work best to coax a hit from these salmon.
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Here is the fishing area that most people are using to catch coho near the National Fish Hatchery in Leavenworth. You can see the Trout Unlimited Handicapped fishing platform in the background.
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Here you see a boat delivering a live fall Chinook to Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife staff on shore at White Bluffs. They were carried to a tanker truck for delivery to the Grant County PUD hatchery. Over 300 fish were caught and delivered live to the hatchery to boost natural origin spawning.
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This was derby headquarters at Vernita for the CCA King of the Reach Salmon Derby, supported by Grant County PUD and the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife. This year Thor Ostrom's crew brought in 52 natural origin fall Chinook that were transferred to the tankers to be delivered to the Grant County hatchery.
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My wife Eileen is pretty pleased with her first steelhead of the season. This one was landed on our favorite stretch of the Columbia below Chief Joseph Dam. We were fishing with bobbers and jigs baited with shrimp.
We should have a great steelhead season this year, with almost 20,000 fish over Preist Rapids so far.
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Mike Ericson from the Department of Fish and Wildlife holds up fall Chinook that was brought to shore alive by one of CCA King of Reach Derby participants. It went into a tanker truck and then on to the new Grant County Fish Hatchery at Priest Rapids Dam. Over 300 fish were taken in this year's derby.
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The new Grant County PUD hatchery is operated by the Department of Fish and Wildlife and here you see department personnel sorting fall Chinook by sex and origin to go to holding ponds prior to spawning. The effort sustains the largest salmon run in the contiguous United States.
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A fall Chinook leaves a conveyor and enters a tank truck for transfer from the holding pond to the just completed Grant County PUD hatchery at Priest Rapids. The new state of the art facility will release
5.6 million salmon smolts every year into the Columbia River.
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Brian Nielson, BJs Guide Service, holds up one of the walleye we caught for the camera. Three of us limited on walleye from 14 to 21 inches, and kept 28 perch, all over 11 inches. Potholes is the place to be!
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