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Reports > 2025 > August > Monday 11
Monday, August 11, 2025
 
By Dave Graybill
 
There is a short season on the upper Columbia River that gets by many anglers. The area below the Highway 17 Bridge at Bridgeport, the river is closed fishing except for trout. This season was introduced when a high abundance of triploid rainbow from Rufus Woods were in this stretch of river. The season opens July 1st every year and runs through August 15th, and the daily limit is ten fish! There are two boat launches in Bridgeport and several good areas to look for these fish. I have caught many of these while fishing for steelhead with a bobber and jig. Anglers also have good success casting white hoochies or squid-shaped plastic lures, with a weight about three feet ahead of the lure. Back trolling plugs is another technique. There is a good eddy at the bottom end of the drift below the bridge on the east side of the river, and another eddy at the bottom end of the drift below the sandy beach on the other side of the river. The “Blow Hole” is another place where these big trout hang out. Anglers largely ignore this fishery so there should be good numbers of them here.