Those without a boat try their hand from shore. There is a big public fishing pier at Camas and hundreds of yards of shoreline along Hamilton Island where bank-anglers can set up.

Drano Lake, actually a backwater where the Little White Salmon River empties into the Columbia, is the final destination for loads of hatchery springers returning to the Little White Salmon National Fish Hatchery. The boat launch was rebuilt a couple of years ago into a topnotch facility.

When the Bonneville Dam fish counts reach 1,000 per day for five consecutive days, drop everything and head to Drano.

In years past, most Drano fish were caught on Wiggle Warts, though bait has become more popular recently. Prawns were the big thing for a few years, but now green label plug-cut herring has taken center stage.

Most boaters troll. The fast boats pull plugs. The slow boats use herring.

Those drifting use the open-ocean technique of vertical jigging. The northwest shoreline is open to bank-anglers.

Drano is remarkably uniform in depth, and it's only about 25 feet. Trolling is easy.

If pulling plugs, strip off 50 feet of line and start moving until you find the fish.

Herring is a bit more hands-on. Drop the bait to the bottom, crank a few turns of line in, and then start moving. If you don't get bit, then take a few more turns. Repeat until the fish find your bait.

Don't set the hook on the first nibble. Let the fish eat the herring, and then lay the wood to him.

READ THE REGULATIONS
Fishing regulations have gotten increasingly complex as the fish biologists learn about salmon life cycles, effects of habitat degradation and changing ocean conditions. That additional knowledge gets transformed into fishing regulations that change every year, and sometimes several times during the year.

WDFW fish managers make guesses about run sizes and returns months in advance of the actual season. As it is with guesses, some are correct and some are wrong. The wrong guesses often result in emergency regulations that amend the rules published annually in the WDFW's Fishing in Washington.

Before heading to your favorite water, take a few minutes to read the regulations pertaining to that river. Check the WDFW Web site https://fortress.wa.gov/dfw/erules/efishrules/ for any emergency regulations that alter the season or catch limit. Running afoul of the enforcement officers can ruin a good day and cost you a bundle.

TECHNIQUES
Look for river chinooks on the bottom in the deeper pools where they can rest and hide. As they head upriver, the fish also follow distinct travel routes that change with water conditions. A sudden June heat wave will put the fish deeper, so will bright days.

The fish are structure oriented. Use your depthfinder. Look for bottom contours with rapid transitions from shallow to deep. Fish the edges of those ledges.