Angler success rates drop dramatically after the first 24 hours of the season. Hammonds believes that the fish get spooked and scattered by all the fishing pressure, and most of the early fish end up leaving the Columbia, seeking sanctuary in the tributaries. Success rates pick up again in a few days as fresh fish arrive from Wells Dam about 15 miles downriver and the first-day frenzy abates.

It's incongruous to see a Western Washington angler leave Puget Sound, home of year-round salmon fishing, to haul a boat across the mountains and up the Columbia to Brewster in search of summer kings. And yet Bob Fateley, who operates the Triangle Shell Food Mart overlooking the Columbia in Brewster, says it happens all summer long.

Fateley simply walks anglers out the front doors of his market, points them in the right direction and hands them a homemade map. After you catch a king, you can bring it back to his store, have it weighed and entered in his season-long free fishing derby. You'd better plan on catching a nice-sized fish if you want to win. For the last two years, the biggest fish have been 38.25 and 38 pounds, respectively.

"Eighty percent of the fish are caught on size 0 silver dodgers with prism tape in front of plug-cut herring," Fateley says. Hammond agrees and believes success lies in finding and fishing with good-quality herring. He cautions anglers to pick only herring that are clear-eyed and have all their scales. In other words, you want ones that look like living bait. To make the herring last on the hook, he soaks them overnight in a brine of rock salt and chlorine-free water.

Fateley and Hammonds agree that the old Okanogan River channel is the place to find fish. That is where a depth sounder and Fateley's map come in handy. The channel, between 20 and 65 feet deep, pretty much follows the Highway 97 shoreline. The preferred early-season method is to troll upstream, either following or crisscrossing the channel toward the mouth of the Okanogan. No one anchors on this part of the river.

The universal fishing truth is fish are where you find them. Fateley runs one downrigger at 20 feet and a second one between 30 and 35 feet. Hammonds thinks most fish are between 30 and 50 feet down. They agree that a two-mile section of the south shore of Brewster Pool along Crane Orchard Road from the Highway 173 bridge upstream is a tackle-robbing tangle of underwater obstructions.

If you like seeing the sunrise from the river, go fishing early. Many anglers swear by the morning bite. Don't fret, however, if you are the morning latte type. Upriver summer kings bite throughout the day and night. In fact, Hammonds says that the largest fish he's caught the last two seasons were both taken at 1 p.m. on sunny days. Although some people fish throughout the night, particularly when the season opens, Hammonds would like to see night-fishing banned. He thinks that giving the fish a bit of a breather from pressure would allow them to regroup and stay in the Columbia longer.