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12/11/2003 Entry: "December 11th, 2003"

Hellooooooo Guys!
I figured I better update my fishing report.
Before I go any further, I would like to thank all my past years customers for coming out fishing with us. As we all know we can't predict how the fishing will be but overall we had a very successful fishing season. We started out with spring chinook, which was an awesome year, followed by shad and oversize sturgeon below Bonneville Dam. Summer Steelhead was a kick and then there was "Astoria/Buoy 10" area. Lots of fun and lots of fish. After that we followed these salmon up the Columbia River to the PriestRapids/Hanford Reach areas. Fishing started slow but picked up steam as the cooler temperatures dipped and higher water flows picked up. From Mid-October to the end, fishing was phoenominal, with fish in the upper 30's to lower 40's were the norm. I had to cancel the last couple of days because of problems I had with my power trim on my 200 Mercury. I had other area guides that were willing to let me use their boat but somehow it just didn't seem right to do that, "Thanks guys for offering".
Now, I am home and trying to catch up with all the stuff that needs to be done around the house and getting ready for the upcoming spring chinook season.
I read the paper today, and it looks like we will have another large spring run this year with about 305,000 plus springers over Bonneville Dam. WDFW is predicting 12,700 adult fish for the Wind River, 8,400 for Drano Lake and 3,500 for Klickitat River. Next week we will have some public figures and tallies and is expected to be second only to the 416,00 return of 2001.
I drove by the parking and boat launch at Drano Lake today and work is progressing and it looks like the parking will be doubled. The only drawback is that the local paper stated that the boat launch will be closed until the end of March and open for use starting April 1st through the end of May which closes again and opens up the beginning of August. That is the county plan, which will affect boat fishing, because the summer steelhead start coming in the beginning of July and improves throughout the end of the month.
We will be looking forward to hear from all our customers again this coming year and I am very positve about this coming fishing season. Also in the works, we are looking at purchasing a new custom built 25' boat so we will see what happens there. We haven't decided on what brand but we will be looking for something with plenty of room and comfort, and of course the right price.
We are offering gift certificates, for the holidays for the upcoming season, so if you need one for that hard to please person give us a try, I can assure you we will have plenty of fun this season.
Thanks everyone for everything...........Dave @ Hooked On Fishing Guide Service