LONGVIEW — This year’s Cowlitz River recreational smelt dip-fishing season kicked off Wednesday almost totally without its two most important elements: smelt and people dipping for them. Each year for decades, the banks of the Cowlitz have been lined elbow to elbow with thousands of dippers looking to fill their buckets with the small but delicious fish. But this year at Gerhart Gardens, which is normally one of the most popular dipping spots, only a dozen nets plunged into the water as the season started at 8 a.m. sharp. This year was the first during which licenses were required for the prized local tradition and the first during which approved dipping days were announced so far in advance. It’s hard to say if the low dipper turnout Wednesday was because of rainy weather, the Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife’s new approach or the fact that smelt hadn’t yet made it into the Cowlitz despite the fishery being opened. On Thursday, WDFW approved dipping on March 19 and 22, which will be the last day of the season.

“We’re focused right now on making sure we do the best job we can with this current strategy,” WDFW spokesman Britton Ransford said about the department’s new approach to opening the fishery. “Hopefully Saturday’s fishery will produce a little bit more success.” No fish, so far While it was immediately clear Wednesday there were no smelt in the river — when there are, sea lions feast at the surface and birds dive from above — Will Lin was not giving up so fast. The 34-year-old Army veteran woke up at 6 a.m. and headed south from Puyallup with a friend to secure a spot at Gerhart. Last year, it was so packed he had to drive upriver to find a spot. “We didn’t really get anything until like 9 a.m. (last year), so fish don’t really follow a schedule out here,” he said resolutely, despite his empty net this year. “We got our 10 pounds, but it took some work.”

About 50 feet upstream from Lin on Wednesday, 78-year-old Ken Scott stood beside the boat launch talking to others fishing there about the tradition in which he has participated since he was in high school. “I got my gear in the truck and everything, but I didn’t even take it out,” the Kelso local said. At the time, the fish were still out by Cathlamet, said Ransford with WDFW. “The unpredictable nature of these fish makes it hard to predict when they’ll be in the system,” he explained, “but we’re hoping that, maybe with some rain, they’ll push it up.” Colder-than-usual river temperatures are one part of what has stalled them, he said. What’s new this year At the top of the boat ramp, Ransford manned an easy-up tent while chatting with dippers about this year’s new approach — and graciously accepting their occasional good-spirited barb about that approach.

“Have you seen a smelt successfully captured yet?” one would-be dipper called from his truck with a sarcastic grin. “We’ve been weighing a lot of fish, yeah,” Ransford offered back, standing in front of the empty scale. In addition to WDFW’s January license announcement, the department also switched its approach to how it selects which days the fishery will be open. Previously, the harvest days occurred when there were lots of fish in the river. That was partly because they were picked as the result of the department testing how many fish were in the Cowlitz itself.

But this year, the department has announced the coming week’s fishing opportunities on the Friday before. It’s now basing those decisions on less testing and also weighing data from the Columbia River commercial smelt fishery more heavily than before. The new approach is designed to give fishery managers, WDFW police, local communities and dippers more time to prepare for the dipping days, the department said in January. An unpopular move But to many would-be dippers, the new approach misses the whole point of the fishery: to catch fish. “I liked it better when they opened it when the fish were here,” said Scott, the lifelong dipper. “Normally, you could see them swimming by right here by the bank.”

Scott also pointed out that the shift especially hurts people driving long distances to come here for smelt. “I talked to people this morning from Seattle, and they said, ‘Well, we just thought that there’d be smelt everywhere because they opened the river up,’” said Scott. “I said, ‘No, they opened the river up because the commercial boats’ (catch data).’” Two people with whom a reporter spoke at Gerhart on Wednesday morning had taken the day off work to drive to the river. Both were from Vancouver. Other fishers said they felt the new license requirement was just to generate more money for WDFW, but they seemed to accept the move much more readily than the scheduling change.

WDFW response In response to criticisms of this year’s approach, WDFW’s Ransford emphasized the benefits of the new way and noted that the department did tell dippers in advance that few smelt would be in the river Wednesday. “We put on our web page and a handful of other places, the peak of the run hasn’t entered in the Cowlitz yet. So fishing prospects today were not high to start with,” he said. At the top of WDFW’s Cowlitz River smelt webpage, it notes that the fishery is open. Thirty-nine lines of text below that, within a larger quote, a WDFW biologist notes, “it’s unlikely the peak of the run has entered the Cowlitz River.” None of the roughly 10 dippers The Columbian surveyed said they had seen the update. But turnout was low, so many others may have or just noticed the lack of sea lions and birds in the area.

“It’s fishing, not catching, for one,” Ransford added. “At the end of the day, being able to provide potential dates is the goal, to be more transparent about when we might be able to open fisheries, prepare for the impacts that Longview, Kelso, Castle Rock might incur, allow them to have a little bit more time to plan.” The harvest often draws crowds larger than 10,000 people. WDFW was not able to tell The Columbian how many more people got freshwater fishing licenses this year due to the smelt requirement. Pam Underberg runs the sporting goods section at Ace Hardware in Woodland, which is a popular place for people to get fishing licenses. She said a handful of people who came in during recent weeks to get licenses said they were for smelt specifically. WDFW said its “staff did not observe any harvest during the fishery.” The department added that its enforcement staff did not issue any smelt-related citations during Wednesday’s fishery.

Columbia River smelt, also known as eulachon, are listed as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act. That means fishery managers must monitor the run size and manage the fishery to prevent overharvesting. Smelt’s numbers have varied widely year to year but are a fraction of historic returns. WDFW called off harvests in 2018, 2019 and 2023 due to small returns. Would-be dippers can find the most up-to-date information at wdfw.wa.gov/fishing/regulations/smelt.

About the project: The Murrow News Fellowship is a state-funded journalism project managed by Washington State University. Local partners are The Columbian and The Daily News. For more information, visit news-fellowship.murrow.wsu.edu.