Say hey, springers are finally on the way! Spring Chinook are finally starting to appear in the Willamette River's tributaries. Almost 17,000 adult springers have passed through Willamette Falls headed for the Middle Fork, Santiam and Mckenzie. Over 2,000 summer-run steelhead are also following suit. Although these fish are late, we Willamette Valley fishermen are overjoyed to finally see them coming. By May 5th of last year, we already had over 46,000 springers and over 8,000 summer-run steelhead over the Falls. We are all hoping that the timing is delayed and we will see a fine run again this year as we did last year. Only time will tell. The old adage " every year is different" certainly applies. I will be running the sled over on the Santiam this weekend. River levels are a good deal higher than optimal for fishing over there, but a guy's gotta do what a guy's gotta do! We'll keep you posted.