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.

On Thursday, WDFW approved dipping on Wednesday and March 22 — the last day of the season. Saturday's dipnetting is also ...

Anglers from across the Pacific Northwest took to the banks of the Cowlitz River on Wednesday, March 12, for the opening of the state's brief smelt dipping season. All it took was a few empty nets for ...

Dipnetting from the shore is allowed on the Cowlitz River from the Tennant Way Bridge upstream to the Al Helenberg Memorial Boat Ramp in Castle Rock, Fish and Wildlife reports. Popular dipnetting ...

A “river monster” isn’t really what it sounds like at first. The expression was popularized by the show that shares the name, but it simply means a massive freshwater fish that lives in a river. We ...

Smelt dippers will return to the banks of the Cowlitz River as the Washington state Department of Fish and Wildlife has approved recreational fisheries for Wednesday, March 12, and Saturday, March 15.

Smelt! Yup, their passage up the lower Columbia has been marked by packs of sea lions and, more recently, by Washington’s ...

Smelt dipping will return to the banks of the Cowlitz River as Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) approved recreational fisheries for Wednesday and Saturday (March 15). Dip-netting will ...

“You don’t hunt the deer, or fish, or dig roots ... Pickers set up tents in Randle, too, camping near the Cowlitz River, while others camp in the woods, closer to the berry fields.

There’ve been many recent winters when the ice isn’t thick enough for David MacDougall to set up his smelt shack on the Squamscott River in downtown Exeter. This year is different.

Researchers at the University of New Hampshire are hoping to learn why the population of tiny rainbow smelt has declined significantly in the rivers and estuaries surrounding Great Bay. The ...