I am very excited about the return of coho to the upper Columbia River, and when I told my brothers Rick and Lane about it, they want to go—and I mean right now! We tried the Columbia on Monday, and it appears we jumped the gun. According to the fish counts over 22,000 coho have passed over Rock Island Dam, so we figured the river would be full of them. We spent most of our time off Walla Walla Point, knowing that the majority of these fish would be bound for the National Fish Hatchery in Leavenworth. We didn’t get a sniff. Breaking down what must have contributed to our poor luck we had to blame the river flow. I pulled up the Chelan County PUD Currents App on my phone and found that the flow below Rocky Reach Dam was just 56 kcfs. When the current picks up the fish will be concentrated and be easier to find and to catch. Our buddy Shane Magnuson told us that trolling MagLip 3.5s in the orange with black stripes and the metallic pink are good coho plugs and to troll them fast. We’ll be out after them again when conditions improve.
My brother Lane cast a Rooster Tail while Rick and I trolled plugs off Walla Walla Point for coho.