Some folks just plain know how to catch fish, apparently, because their names keep popping up on the lists of local salmon derby money winners.
As evidence, take last Saturday’s Everett Blackmouth Derby. It was won by Dale Helgesson who, in the words of Lake Stevens resident, outdoor talk show host, and observer of the local salmon scene Tom “Nelly” Nelson, “…is the son of former Marysville Fire Chief Mel Helgesson. He won the event when the wind shifted to the north and blew his boat into shallower water on the north side of Hat Island. Yep, he was dragging the racetrack, got a little too far south, and popped a 16.12 pounder (cleaned weight) to win $3K.
“Meanwhile, I ran to Midchannel Bank ‘cause I supposedly know what I’m doing and got skunked.”
Another familiar name, Ron Lampers, took second and $1,500 with a blackmouth of 14.18 cleaned pounds. This was the second derby in a row (Hot Plug’s, the week before, was the other) in which Lampers went home with second money. Scott Bumstead, another experienced fisherman, took third and $500 for a fish of 11.72 pounds, while a perennial name on the derby lists, Lance Husby, had to settle for eighth place.
Woody Woods, derby chairman and board member of the sponsoring Everett Steelhead and Salmon Club, said the wind, under a small craft advisory, was a tough, and possibly dangerous, opponent. “I was a very happy man when everybody was on the beach and accounted for,” he said.
In spite of the lousy weather, entrants weighed 17 fish, compared to last year’s 27, and the size was pretty good. The seventh place fish was probably a 13-pounder in the round.
“Area 8-2 was popular,” Woods said, “because the east side of Whidbey offered at least a little protection from the wind. But we had fishermen at Midchannel, Liplip Point, Point No Point — all over.”
Woods said he thought a Coho Killer spoon took the winning chinook, and that the lure was used by a lot of participants.
The derby has been drawing from an increasingly wide demographic, and Woods said “We had one guy from Kansas, two boats from Yakima, and two more from Vancouver, B.C.”
Trout
Spokesman Mark Spada said the Snohomish Sportsman’s Club has started planting rainbow in Blackman’s Lake. The first plant of about 600 fish was made last week, in addition to the state plant of “catchables.” Spada said the club’s trout, purchased with funds generated by the annual Everett Coho Derby, run from 12 inches to lunkers as heavy as six pounds.
Blackman’s Lake lies on the north edge of Snohomish and has good public access including fishing piers.
No trout
Five popular trout lakes in Grant County, among a group in the Columbia Basin due to open to fishing on April 1, will have no planted fish. That’s zero trout, after the lakes were treated with rotenone last fall to get rid of stunted pumpkinseed sunfish. After “rehabilitating” lakes, WDFW usually restocks with catchable-size rainbow in the 11- to 13-inch range. But five lakes — Sago, Hourglass, Widgeon, and Upper and Lower Hampton — lie within the Columbia National Wildlife Refuge managed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which prohibits stocking refuge waters with catchable-size gamefish, said WDFW district fish biologist Chad Jackson in Ephrata.
This spring, WDFW hatchery crews will stock the five lakes with rainbow fingerlings measuring two to four inches in length, which will grow to harvestable size by next year’s opener. Meanwhile, waters currently open to fishing include Martha, Upper Caliche, Quincy, Burke and the Quincy walk-in lakes, as well as Blythe, Canal, Chukar, Corral, Heart, Windmill and North Windmill lakes.
The April 1 opener will include Pillar, Snipe, Cattail, Gadwall, Poacher, Shoveler and Lemna. North and South Teal lakes also open April 1 and should fish very well this year, Jackson said.
Good times on the beaches
A trifecta of events should draw crowds to the coastal beaches this weekend, including the Ocean Shores Razor Clam Festival, the switch from evening digging tides to the more popular morning tides, and a last chance to use the 2014-15 fishing licenses.
The 9th annual clam festival is scheduled for Friday, 2-7 p.m.; Saturday, 11 a.m. to 7 p.m.; and Sunday, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. A range of activities, including a clam chowder cook-off and kids’ events, take place at the Ocean Shores Convention Center. For information, go to www.oceanshores.org/clams, or call 360-289-2451.
State razor clam manager Dan Ayres says there are a lot of clams remaining to be dug, and that “they’re bigger now and growing all the time.”
“We have a nice mix of sizes on all the beaches,” Ayres says, “so there are no particular ‘hot’ spots. Some of the larger clams, however, have been coming from Mocrocks beaches and the north end of Copalis Beach.”
This will be the first time this winter season that Copalis will be open on consecutive days.
There are also a couple of pretty good tides over the weekend, although the long-range forecast called for 9-foot swells on Friday. That’s not great, but still diggable, Ayres says. At 12 feet or above, forget it.
The tide schedule for the remainder of this series is as follows:
March 20, minus 0.4 feet at 7:26 p.m. on all beaches except Kalaloch; March 21, minus 0.5 feet at 7:55 AM, on all beaches except Kalaloch; March 22, minus 0.7 feet at 8:42 a.m. on all beaches except Kalaloch; March 23, minus 0.6 feet at 9:31 a.m. on Long Beach and Twin Harbors only; and March 24, minus 0.3 feet at 10:21 a.m. on Long Beach and Twin Harbors.
Springers
State biologist Joe Hymer in the Vancouver WDFW office says the popular spring chinook run in the lower Columbia River continues to build, but that it might be a week or two before peak fishing success rates begin to show. Checks last week of about 900 anglers in 300 boats tallied 62 chinook caught, of which 51 were kept. Hymer says the best checks came from the Woodland area, but that fish were caught all the way down to Cathlamet.
The river is still fishable, running at 150,000 to 200,000 cubic feet per second, he said.
The catch is currently a mix of five-year fish going from the high teens to 30-plus pounds, and four-year fish weighing 12 to 15 pounds. Hymer added that two springers were caught last week on the Kalama.
The 247 adult spring chinook counted at Bonneville Dam through March 15 is the highest total through that date since 2003. Last year, only six adult kings had been counted through March 15, and the latest 10-year average is 30 fish.
Hunter education
With spring turkey hunts set to open in mid-April, demand for hunter education course is increasing.
“Basic hunter education courses are also in high demand and fill up rapidly in late summer and fall, ahead of the big game seasons,” said Dave Whipple, WDFW hunter education manager. “We encourage new hunters to enroll in hunter ed courses well ahead of their first hunting trip.”
A hunter ed course is required for first-time Washington hunters born after Jan. 1, 1972, and about 14,000 students complete the programs, administered by WDFW, each year.
To find a course and learn about hunter education requirements, new hunters should visit the WDFW hunter ed web page at http://wdfw.wa.gov/hunting/huntered/classes/basic.php.
Check the website again if you don’t find a program that meets your needs, as classes are added regularly.
For more outdoor news, read Wayne Kruse’s blog at www.heraldnet.com/huntingandfishing
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