Columbia sport fishing cut short
Tuesday, April 19, 2005 11:15 PM PDT
By Tom Paulu
Printable version
E-mail this articleAs predictions for the spring chinook run size get smaller, Oregon and Washington fishery managers have decided to close recreational fishing.
The mainstem of the Columbia River downstream of McNary Dam to the mouth will close for recreational salmon, steelhead and shad fishing at 11:59 p.m. today.
Managers will meet again next week and could reopen the season. But during a conference call Tuesday, Steve Williams of the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife said "we're going to have to have an amazing turnaround to help us here."
Columbia tributaries remain open for fishing.
The preseason forecast for spring chinook passing Bonneville Dam was 254,100 fish. A week ago, biologists guessed the run will end up half that amount.
As of Tuesday, biologists "have high uncertainty of what the run size is," said Cindy LeFleur of the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife.
If the run is 82,000, non-Indian fishermen will have caught 96 percent of their share of endangered fish by Thursday. Some biologists think the run will be less than 82,000, which would rule out any further fishing, LeFleur said.
The most precise count of spring chinook is at the Bonneville Dam fish ladder, where numbers have increased in the past week. But the spring chinook total of 1,545 fish through Monday is the lowest count for that date on record. Based on 10-year average counts, more than 50,000 chinook normally would have passed the dam by this point.
Biologists recommended the Thursday closure adopted by the Oregon and Washington officials. Biologists proposed commercial gillnet seasons in three "select areas," which are at the side of the Columbia where few upriver fish go.
"There's nobody broker than I am," said commercial fisherman Gary Soderstrom, president of Columbia River Fisherman's Protective Union and a Clatskanie resident.
But he and other commercial fishermen said they'd rather wait a week and see how the run is developing before getting any more seasons in the select areas.
Along with holding off on a gillnet season in Young's Bay near Oregon, the ODFW closed that area to sport fishing.
The last gillnet season in the mainstem was April 1.
Sea lions came in for more criticism during the meeting. Complaints about the big marine mammals pulling fish off sport angler's hooks have been frequent, and two sea lions have been spotted in the Bonneville fish ladder.
Virgil Lewis Sr. of the Yakama Indian Nation said sea lions are targeting female salmon, which could have serious effects on spawning.
Biologists have said sea lions' appetite can't account for the huge discrepancy between the pre-season forecast and the number of fish that are arriving.
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