The Fishin' Magician: Spring Salmon

If you haven't heard, the Icicle River has been reopened to fishing for spring salmon. A closure was announced then reversed as a good number of fish entered the hatchery with the recent rains. Escapement and brood stock goals have been met, so anglers are back at it on the Icicle.

Additional fish were needed this year to supply the new Colville Tribal Hatchery in Bridgeport. They will be releasing spring salmon, along with a large number of summer-runs that will enhance the salmon fishing on the upper Columbia in the near future.

There is still hope that we may see the Wenatchee River open to spring salmon fishing. There are still springers that are headed up the Wenatchee to the hatchery on the Chiwawa River, and if everything goes through, we could still have a chance at spring salmon on the Wenatchee.

I got a report from my sidekick Eric Granstrom on the trout fishing at Spectacle Lake, which is in Okanogan County near Tonasket. He was there last weekend and caught a lot of rainbow, some to 16 inches. He used the same gear that he does to catch kokanee, and it worked just fine. He put his baits down between 20 and 40 feet to get his fish.