[3] Commercial Harvest OK'd For Upper Columbia Summer Chinook

Columbia River non-tribal gillnetters got their first significant crack at the summer chinook run for the first time in 40 years when they hit the water June 27 in the first of three 10-hour fishing periods allowed by harvest managers, who have allotted 3,200 fish for the commercials and an equal number for sports fishermen below Priest Rapids Dam.

With about 2,000 chinook passing Bonneville Dam each day, and most of them headed for the upper Columbia, managers have estimated this year's run at around 62,000 fish (to river mouth). Last year's run was about the same size, and the third largest since 1979. The 2003 summer run was second largest since 1979, and 2002 produced a record 93,000 summer chinook.

The upper Columbia summer chinook run is not listed for protection under the ESA, but inriver fisheries have been severely constrained out of concern for the ESA-listed summer chinook headed for the Snake River. However, harvest managers say adult pit-tag detections at Bonneville Dam show that most of the Snake run will have passed by the end of June and opening the fishery will have little effect on the protected run, an assessment that NMFS agreed with in a recent harvest BiOp.

The managers changed their accounting methodology this year to more effectively separate the Snake spring/summer chinook from the later-running upper Columbia summer run by adding two weeks to the spring counting season.

The fisheries are being managed for an escapement of 29,000 fish to the river mouth. This harvest plan will provide over half of the non-treaty harvest to recreational and tribal fisheries in the upper Columbia, where Wanapum and Colville tribal fishermen set their nets. The two tribes are not parties to the U.S. v. Oregon process that governs lower tribal fishing, so their harvest allocation must come out of the non-tribal share of 15,150 summer chinook. Tribal fisheries below McNary Dam get another 15,150 chinook.

Sports fishermen began their summer chinook season June 16 all the way from near Astoria to Priest Rapids Dam with a later opening that will extend to Chief Joseph dam. -B. R.

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