[6] Columbia Harvest Managers Hope Spring Season Lasts Past April

Washington and Oregon fish agencies announced last week a plan to allow sport fishers to target hatchery chinook in the Columbia River below the 1-5 bridge through April 19. And they say their staff expects the season to last much longer than that, according to ODFW's Curt Melcher.

Managers are a bit gun shy after only about half of last year's pre-season spring prediction actually materialized. The same situation occurred on the Willamette, when only 61,000 chinook showed up out of a 117,000 pre-season forecast.

Last year, sport fishing for chinook closed April 19 below the I-5 bridge. In 2004, it lasted until May.

With 161,0000 spring chinook expected to enter the river in 2006, and more than half projected to head for tributaries above Bonneville Dam, the managers are concentrating more fishing effort in the lower river to protect wild fish heading past the dam, while hoping to extend the fishing season.

The two states also ironed out their differences in the catch split between the commercial and the sports sector. Sports groups had lobbied both states' F&W commissioners to boost their share of the allowable, 2 percent non-treaty impact on wild ESA-listed chinook from 60 percent to 70 percent. However Oregon commissioners voted to cut the sporties' share by five percent, while Washington voted to maintain than status quo. They split the difference and ended up allocating 57 percent to the sports side and 43 percent to the commercial fishery, where generous prices are again expected from wholesalers

Managers expect the sport anglers to catch around 31,000 hatchery chinook, while the gillnetters are projected to choke about 6,700, which includes their catch from the selective areas that target net-pen fish outside the main channel where most wild fish are migrating. Managers estimate that mortality from releasing wild chinook from gillnets is about 4 times higher than mortality from the sports side unhooking wild fish.

The relatively good news is that 14,600 wild Snake River springers are expected. That's a slightly higher number than actually showed last year. The total upriver spring run (whose count now includes Snake summer chinook) is predicted to come in at 88,400 fish, which is down from last year's 107,000-fish return, but greater than the average runs of the 1980's and 1990's. -B. R.

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