But Rico, owner of Hot Shot Guide Service (206-469-0567), gets a semi-cagey, semi-delighted look in his eye when he talks about a fishery that, through late March and early April, has been his personal spring Chinook playground.

"I can go up there right now and pop a fish, and there won't be a lot of pressure," said Rico.

"As a matter of fact, where I fish, I don't even see another boat. I'm out there all by myself."

He's talking about the virtually unexplored springer opportunity that lies between The Dalles Dam and John Day Dam, a fishery that, until this year, had been the property of walleye and bass anglers in April and May.

If Portland-, Spokane-, Tri-Cities-, Seattle-, Anylittlepodunkville-based springer hunters are smart, all those bass and walleye boats armed with crankbaits and bottom bouncers will be joined over the next month by jet sleds loaded with Kwikfish, FlatFish, spinners and bait.

"The upriver springer count is 440,000," said Rico. "I hear that roughly 300,000 of those are headed past The Dalles.

Even if that's not the exact number, there are still a lot of fish heading upriver.

There aren't a lot of fish up there yet, but once the counts start getting into thousands — where there are 1,000-plus fish going over The Dalles — that's the time to fish it.

Once those numbers are good and the weekend pressure on Drano is getting crazy, I'm fishing above The Dalles."

The fishery: Rico's familiarity with The Dalles-to-John-Day springer fishery came from several years of fishing the same body of water for walleye and bass.

And while it's relatively new territory for many salmon anglers, this might be the perfect time to get buddy-buddy with veterans of the pool's spinyray fishery.

"If you know where to catch walleye up there, you know where to catch springers," Rico said.

"People who have caught springers incidentally while fishing for walleye know what I'm talking about.

That's how I found that fishery, fishing plugs at high speed for walleye. I'd be trolling and boom, there's a springer.

And then boom, another springer. I started to figure out that it wasn't a fluke. That's how I learned the travel lanes, and where they hang."

The key to the springer fishery is to know salmon-holding structure when you see it.

"The fish finder is a vital tool," said Rico. "You're fishing a lot of breaks, looking for shelves that drop 10 to 30 feet.

It's a lot of structure fishing, working close to shorelines where you'd normally find walleye.

You want to find staging areas where fish hold up, and travelling lanes where fish will move through."

Rico's structure-finding routine is simple: He'll idle downriver in quarter mile stretches, watching the finder for concentrations of fish either holding on structure or travelling thorough.

"If there are fish there, we'll stop and work for them," he said. "If we're not marking anything, I'll keep moving until I find fish."

Where to start

Starting just above The Dalles and moving upriver, here are some spots to start your search:

Browns Island: Launch in Avery on the Washington side (off Highway 14 west of Maryhill) and work around the island for travelling fish.

"Fish seem to hold around the island overnight and then travel it during the day," said Rico.

"It's fairly shallow there, so they seem to use it more as a travelling lane."

Deschutes River/Miller Island: Look for fish to start heading into the Deschutes in viable numbers around the third week in April.

"I usually start looking around the Deschutes when numbers of fish aren't moving over John Day," said Rico.

"That means that fish are holding between the dam." Look for breaks and channels from the mouth of the Deschutes downriver about an eighth of a mile.

You'll find two main channels ranging from 15 to 40 feet, where fish will lay in deeper water before moving up onto the edges to travel during the day.

Maryhill: Fish from the Highway 97 bridge up to the island roughly a mile upstream from the Maryhill State Park launch.

"You're mainly fishing travelling lanes above Maryhill," said Rico. "Get on your fish finder and find the structure there.

When you see that they're moving upriver, move up with them."

John Day: Work both sides of the river from the deadline (roughly a quarter mile below the dam) down to the big island, looking for travelling lanes on the Oregon side and holding pockets on the Washington side.

"There's a lot of deep structure on the Washington side, definitely deeper water and holding areas," said Rico.

"The Oregon side is more open, with flats. You're looking for breaks that fish might be travelling on."

However, the Oregon side closest to the deadline above the John Day ramp is loaded with deeper holding structure.