Smelt 2, Smelt Dippers 0: Saturday A Bust As Fish Stay In Columbia

It was a good day for steelheading and standing in the rain on the lower end of the Cowlitz, smelt dipping not so much.

For the second straight opener, it appears that few if any smelt were caught, though there are potential good signs from the Lower Columbia for next week, should the oily little fish bless us with a timely appearance on next Wednesday and Saturday’s final openers for the season.

“Still stacked in the mainstem, from County Line Park to the mouth,” reported Britton Ransford, a WDFW spokesman, this afternoon after dipping hours wrapped up. “Some (marine) mammal activity in the lower Cowlitz early this morning, but no evidence they’re running upriver.”

Ransford said that no smelt were brought in to the agency’s check stations at Castle Rock and Gearhart Gardens and that there were no smelt-related citations issued by WDFW officers during today’s 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. fishery.

Indeed, plunkers had better luck than dippers.

“Saw some steelhead get landed, at least,” Ransford noted.

Yesterday, when WDFW authorized next week’s two dips, it acknowledged that Wednesday’s opener had been a disappointment, but pointed out that “smelt runs are naturally unpredictable and influenced by a variety of factors, including water conditions, which affect run timing, abundance, and availability …” and said that, “as with all fisheries, there are no guarantees they’ll be present on any given day.”

State smelt managers greenlighted this week’s openers when Lower Columbia commercial test-fishing boat deliveries shot up last week, easily topping the 250-pound-average landing benchmark from WDFW and ODFW’s management plan for the Endangered Species Act-listed population for this year’s slightly downgraded runsize forecast.

And this week saw deliveries continue to spike, with nearly 21,000 pounds worth brought in in six landings Monday and Wednesday for an average of just under 3,500 pounds a delivery, a good sign of increasing abundance in the Lower Columbia.

While controversial with some, commercial landings are used to collect biological data on the run and inform when to open recreational fisheries. Since 2014, Cowlitz sport dippers have caught vastly more smelt than commercial test boats, nearly 1 million pounds worth to 133,593 pounds, per stats from 2023’s management plan, commercial landing data posted on ODFW’s website and 2024’s recreational opener on the river.

Another good though controversial sign of smelt abundance: Video shot yesterday morning showed a very large group of sea lions gathered at the mouth of the Cowlitz River.

(In related news, a bill in Washington’s legislature, House Joint Memorial 4004, that would have asked Congress and the Trump Administration to amend the Marine Mammal Protection Act for more leeway in removing problem pinnipeds died this week when it didn’t make it out of its house of origin by Wednesday afternoon’s deadline.)

Dippers also watch for good numbers of seagulls as a sign that the run of smelt up the Columbia into the Cowlitz is on, and there have been other recent videos posted on Facebook of both birds and sea lions likely working smelt schools in the mainstem below the tributary.

Those omens, auguries and portents are all well and good for next week (best advice: check with multiple local sources before making the drive), but in the here and now, today will go down as a moist bust.

“Lovely day in the torrential rain and wind otherwise,” WDFW’s Ransford said.