Buoy 10 King Salmon Fishing Charters

One of the Pacific NW's most popular sport fisheries is known simply as Buoy 10.  Buoy 10 is a nautical marker marking the entrance to the Pacific Ocean of the Columbia River.  This marker also serves as a fishing regulation boundary.  The Buoy 10 fishery usually encompasses a line through Buoy 10 and Tongue Point near the Astoria Megler Bridge.

We have two of the best full time Washington State Fishing Guides available to fish the peak month for King and Coho Salmon each year in August.  During years when there is a strong Coho Salmon run we will stay and continue fishing into mid-late September for Coho Salmon.

The small towns of Chinook, Astoria and Warrenton along the mouth of the Columbia come alive in August due to summer tourism and the return of millions of fall salmon.

Our guides meet at the West Mooring Basin in Astoria and the Hammond Marina in Warrenton.

The 2016 King Salmon Forecast for the Columbia River is just shy of 1 million fish and as a result of the strong anticipated return King Salmon is open through Labor Day pending actual returns.

The largest King Salmon we caught in August 2015 was probably 43 pounds with at least one king salmon over 20 pounds caught daily.

If you want to catch the biggest and freshest king salmon of the year without taking your chances in the Ocean or Alaska then Buoy 10 fishing near Astoria, Oregon is the best bet for you!

Buoy 10 King Salmon Fishing Guides and Charters

The 2016 Buoy 10 forecast is for 960,000 Huge King Salmon.  The popular sport fishery know as Buoy 10 is names after the nautical marker Buoy 10 which marks the entrance to the Columbia River - the same entrance that millions of salmon enter each year headed to upriver destinations such as the Cowlitz River, Kalama River, Lewis River, Willamette River, Snake River and many more.

The 2016 Buoy 10 King Salmon Season is going to be off the hook with nearly 1 Million King and Coho Salmon entering the Columbia River in mostly August and September.

One of our most popular services is guided fishing and charters for king and coho salmon at Buoy 10.  The best time to go is August 1st through Labor Day.  The 2016 season for king and coho salmon starts August 1st and goes through Labor Day this year which will give everyone plenty of time to book a Buoy 10 Charter Trip for King Salmon.

Astoria boasts thousands of fishing trips during the peak king salmon run with many sport fishing charter and fishing guides taking tens of thousands of anglers out to catch ocean fresh salmon without actually going in the ocean.  

Columbia River Fishing Guides, Columbia River Fishing Charters, Columbia River King Salmon

Buoy 10 Fishing Guides  Buoy 10 Fishing Charters Buoy 10 King Salmon Buoy 10 Coho Salmon Buoy 10 Silvers Buoy 10 King Salmon Guides

2016 Columbia River Spring Chinook Seasons Announced

GREAT NEWS from WDFW Regarding the upcoming and highly anticipated Columbia River Spring Chinook Returns for 2016.  In a nutshell - the best news is for the Cowlitz and Kalama Rivers which are both expecting near record returns of Spring Chinook this April-June.  Book a Cowlitz or Kalama River Spring Chinook Fishing Trip ONLINE HERE

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VANCOUVER, Wash. – Anticipating a return of 299,200 adult spring chinook salmon, fishery managers from Washington and Oregon today set this year’s initial fishing season to run through April 9 on the lower Columbia River.

In addition, representatives from the two states agreed to close the winter sturgeon retention fishery in the Bonneville Pool effective Feb. 8 and approved a six-hour recreational smelt season Feb. 6 on the Cowlitz River.

Here are the major provisions of those agreements:

• Spring chinook: From March 1 through April 9, anglers fishing downriver from Bonneville Dam may retain one marked, hatchery-reared adult spring chinook as part of their daily catch limit. The fishery will be open to both boat and bank anglers upriver to Beacon Rock, and – for bank anglers only – from there upriver to the fishing boundary just below the dam.
  
  The sport fishery will close in all areas of the lower Columbia River on two Tuesdays – March 29 and April 5 – to accommodate potential commercial fisheries.
  
  Upstream of Bonneville Dam, anglers may retain one hatchery-reared adult spring chinook per day from March 16 through May 6 between the Tower Island powerlines and the Washington/Oregon state line. Bank anglers using hand-casted gear (no boats) can also fish from Bonneville Dam upriver to the Tower Island powerlines during that time.
  
  Barbless hooks are required to fish for spring chinook in the Columbia River and anglers must release any salmon or steelhead not visibly marked as a hatchery fish by a clipped adipose fin.

• Sturgeon: The recreational sturgeon retention fishery between Bonneville Dam and The Dalles Dam will close Feb. 8. By that time, fishery managers expect that anglers will have reeled in 140 sturgeon from those waters, leaving 185 available for a one-or-two day fishery in summer. Catch-and-release fishing remains an option until then.

• Smelt: As in the past two years, fishery managers approved a limited fishery for smelt on the Cowlitz River to help gather data on the species’ abundance. Recreational smelt dipping will be restricted to the hours of 7 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 6. The limit per person is 10 pounds – about one-quarter of a five-gallon bucket. Smelt dipping is not allowed from boats.
  
  To support the data-collection effort, the two states also approved a limited gillnet fishery for smelt in February on the lower Columbia River. The area’s smelt population was listed as threatened under the federal Endangered Species Act in 2010, but runs have shown some signs of improvement since then.

Fishing rules reflecting these actions are available on the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife’s (WDFW) website at https://fortress.wa.gov/dfw/erules/efishrules/

Fishing for spring chinook is currently open on a daily basis from Buoy 10 near the mouth of the Columbia River upstream to the Interstate 5 Bridge, although the bulk of the run doesn’t arrive until mid-March when the new fishing rules will be in effect.

Catch guidelines approved for the popular fishery will allow anglers fishing below Bonneville Dam to catch approximately 9,100 hatchery-raised “springers” before an updated run forecast is completed in late April or early May.

Another 1,000 adult upriver chinook are reserved for anglers fishing upriver from Bonneville Dam to the Washington/Oregon state line, 17 miles above McNary Dam. Additional fish have also been reserved for the Snake River sport fishery.

After banner spring chinook returns in each of the past two years, the projected run of 299,200 adult fish for 2016 is still slightly above the recent 10-year average, said Ron Roler, WDFW Columbia River policy manager. However, while this year’s projected run of upriver fish is down by about 100,000 fish from last year, he said returns to some tributaries – notably the Cowlitz and Kalama rivers – show an increase this year.

“Salmon returns rise and fall from year to year, especially during the kind of cyclical ocean changes we’re seeing right now,” Roler said. “Even so, if this run comes in as projected, it will still be the ninth-largest return in more than 25 years. We’re expecting plenty of fish to support a great fishing season.”

As in previous years, Washington and Oregon will manage the fishery with a 30 percent buffer on the upriver chinook forecast until the results of the in-season run update are known.

“We’ll continue to take a conservative approach in managing the fishery,” Roler said. “If the fish return at or above expectations, we will look toward providing additional days of fishing on the river later in the spring.”