Before we forget about salmon altogether, with the hubbub about steelhead, I wanted to give the results of the Triangle Shell Salmon Derby in Brewster. The winner for catching the biggest fish of the season this year was Brooks Fichenscher of Spokane. His big king tipped the scales at 39 ½ pounds! He picked up a check for $750.00 for weighing in this whopper at the Triangle. The youth winner was Nichole Wood of Ephrata. The twelve-year-old was awarded a check for $100.00. The WDFW recently announced the opening of the stretch of the Columbia from Highway 395 Bridge in Pasco to Priest Rapids Dam to steelhead fishing. The daily limit will be three fish, too. This area includes a stretch of the Columbia that hasn’t been open to steelhead fishing since 1996. The fishery was opened in an effort to catch hatchery steelhead before they crowd wild fish off the spawning beds in their home streams. More than 30,000 fish have been counted at Priest Rapids this year, compared to the ten-year average of 12,500. It looks like the previous record return to the Columbia of 630,200 could be broken.