New catch stats for last week show that the red-hot coho bite at the mouth of the Columbia River cooled a bit, but lemme assure you, from personal experience, it’s still damn good.
WDFW reports just under 15,000 silvers brought back to Ilwaco, Wash., Warrenton, Ore., and other ports off the big river’s mouth Aug. 10-16, a dropoff of 1,000 from the previous week.
Still, the quota is rapidly running out. With last week’s figures, 77.8 percent of the catch has come in, up from 60.8 percent as of Aug. 9.
Here are more numbers, by catch area for last week:
Area 1: 1.62 kings/coho per rod; nearly 15,000 coho, 785 kings landed. 77% and 83% of quota/guidelines caught.
Quotas are hard numbers, guidelines softer.
Area 2: 1.66 coho/kings per rod last week; just under 6,200 coho, 553 kings landed. 48.4%, 34% of quota/guidelines gone.
Area 3: 1.59 coho/kings per rod last week; 902 coho, 64 kings landed. 75.7%, 47.5% coho/king quota/guidelines caught.
Area 4: Best week yet, 1.21 coho/kings per rod + 1000 pinks. 66% of coho quota caught, but 103% of softer king guildeine in.
Coastwide, including the northern Oregon shore, anglers have caught 116,211 coho and 11,226 Chinook so far this season. Last week was among the top three weeks of catch per rod, at 1.57
