The Machine at Salmon Falls Still Splits the Washougal River in Two

Stand on the upper bridge on State Route 140, the one that crosses at Salmon Falls, and you'll see a metal weir spanning the river and a fabric tube running off to one side. Fish hit the weir, get sorted, and the hatchery-origin Chinook get sucked through that tube into a waiting tanker truck, which drives them upstream to the Washougal Salmon Hatchery. Locals call it the "whoosh" system. It's been running since 2011, and it is the reason the ten miles of river below Dougan Falls behave less like one continuous fishery and more like two separate ones stitched together at a single point.

That point matters right now, in the last week of September, with the fall Chinook and coho run in full swing. Whether you're standing above the weir or below it changes what you can keep, what gear you can use, and honestly what the fishing even looks like.

Below the Falls Is the Real Salmon Water

The lower river, from the mouth at Camas up to that Salmon Falls bridge, is where almost all of the fall salmon fishing happens. The mouth itself sits right at the Highway 14 bridge, where the Washougal empties into the Camas Slough, and it's an easy, close-to-town spot to fish for Chinook and coho as they first push in from the Columbia. From there, Washougal River Road parallels the lower four miles with enough informal pullouts that you can work a different stretch every trip without ever needing a boat. About four miles up, there's a county park with a boat launch if you'd rather drift it. Keep going and you reach the middle bridge crossing, where a run known locally as the Schoolhouse Hole sits just downstream and has long been a go-to for winter steelhead, though it holds salmon too when they're moving through.

The standing rule for this stretch allows a daily salmon limit of six fish, with up to three adults, and no more than one of those three can be a Chinook. Wild Chinook and wild coho have to go back in the water. Hatchery steelhead carry their own limit of three fish, minimum twenty inches. None of that is exotic as Columbia tributaries go, but it's worth knowing before you're standing in the water debating whether that fish in your net counts against your Chinook tag or not.

The weekly WDFW creel counts for this stretch, filed under Section 2, Camas/Washougal, tell you something the season dates alone don't. The report for the week of September 8 had 106 boats keeping 78 Chinook, with coho barely a factor. By September 14, boat effort had climbed to 128 while Chinook catch had already dropped to 45 and coho started showing up in real numbers, 11 kept that week. A week later, on September 21, effort collapsed to 60 boats, Chinook catch fell to 11, and coho dropped right along with it to a single fish kept. Read together, the three reports point the same direction: the heaviest stretch of this year's run was already behind us by mid-September, and the water has been thinning out fast since. If you're deciding when to be on this stretch, the numbers say the crowded window has passed rather than one still building.

Above the Falls, It's a Different River

Cross to the upper side of that same bridge and the character of the fishery changes completely. This is smaller, tighter water, with far less pressure, and it functions mainly as the release area for Skamania-strain summer steelhead, the same hatchery strain that was transplanted into Great Lakes tributaries decades ago and still runs here every summer and winter. The Skamania Hatchery itself sits on the North Fork, about nine miles up from the mouth, and releases more than 100,000 smolts of each run every year, which is part of why a river this size still gives up more than 1,000 summer steelhead to anglers in a typical season.

Above the weir, the North Fork and West Fork both carry their own restricted seasons and selective gear rules rather than the general lower-river limits. And there's a hard stop to how far any of this goes: Dougan Falls, about 21 miles from the mouth, blocks most fish migration outright. Everything above that point is a different conversation entirely.

The weir itself only closes water when it's actively running for broodstock collection, and that closure has been narrow and temporary in past years rather than a blanket rule, so it's worth checking current status before you plan a trip around it rather than assuming either way.

The Bounty Program Sharing the Same Water

There's a second program running on this exact stretch of river right now that has nothing to do with salmon season and everything to do with protecting it. Washougal is one of six stations statewide, alongside Cathlamet, Stevenson, The Dalles, Boyer Park, and Swallows Park, where Washington's Northern Pikeminnow Sport-Reward Fishery got extended through October 11 this year, while every station outside that list of six closed at the end of September as originally planned. The program pays anglers $6 to $10 per qualifying pikeminnow, with a shot at $500 for a tagged fish, because pikeminnow prey heavily on juvenile salmon and steelhead in the Columbia system. It means you can be fishing for fall Chinook and coho on one drift and cashing in pikeminnow on the next, on the same afternoon, at the same access point.

The Piece of Paper People Forget

The one rule that trips up more anglers than anything about tackle or limits is the Columbia River Salmon and Steelhead Endorsement, or CRSSE, which has been required on the Washougal since 2026 for anyone targeting salmon or steelhead specifically. It runs $8.75 and it's separate from your standard license. If you're only fishing for cutthroat or resident trout you don't need it, but the moment you're working a drift for Chinook or coho below the falls, you do.

Fifteen Years of Getting Used to It

The weir wasn't popular when it went in. People who'd spent years catching hatchery salmon spawning side by side with wild fish in the upper river didn't love watching that fish get vacuumed into a truck instead. WDFW's own staff have said as much, framing the whoosh system as a requirement under federal hatchery mitigation rules rather than a choice anyone made lightly. Fifteen seasons in, it's just part of how the fall run works here now, the same way the Schoolhouse Hole and the pullouts along Washougal River Road are just part of the map.

If you're headed out this fall, the version of the river you fish depends entirely on which side of that bridge you're standing on.

For anyone whose sense of the Washougal is built mostly around this stretch of river and the neighborhoods that back up to it, the Washougal guide on our site rounds out the rest of the picture. And if you've ever wondered what it's like living close enough to walk down to water like this on a weekend, Debra Penton-Clark is always happy to talk through what that actually looks like, no fishing license required.