[5] Salmon Closure Hits Cal, More Opportunity In NW Waters

The Pacific Fishery Management Council has voted to keep California and southern Oregon ocean waters closed to commercial salmon fishing for the second year in a row. But they did adopt a 10-day chinook season for recreational fishers off Eureka and Crescent City.

The backbone of the California fisheries-the Sacramento Basin chinook run--suffered mightily from poor ocean conditions off San Francisco in 2005 and 2006, when juveniles went to sea. In 2008, only 66,000 adults returned. About twice that number is expected back this year, but it's still below the level that managers say will support sport and commercial fisheries.

A draft report on the chinook collapse found ocean conditions the main factor in the decline, but it also pointed to habitat degradation, water withdrawals and too much reliance on too few hatchery stocks as contributing factors.

Further north, the Klamath River run fared better.

They also OK'd a recreational 117,000-fish quota for hatchery coho south of Cape Falcon, and a 10-day chinook season for sportfishers off Brookings, Oregon.

North of Cape Falcon the news was much better. Sporties can land 176,000 hatchery coho (nearly nine time last year's allocation), and commercials can take 33,000 of them. A 41,000 chinook quota will be split 50-50 between sports and commercials, with treaty Indians allowed 39,000 chinook and 60,000 coho.

Recreational ocean salmon fisheries will begin June 27 off LaPush and Neah Bay and June 28 off Ilwaco and Westport.

The Council decided not to vote for a mark-selective option that would have allowed more chinook for sportfishers off the SW Washington coast than they will now be targeting.

In Puget Sound, summer/fall chinook salmon returns are expected to total about 222,000 fish, down slightly from last year's forecast. Several new mark-selective fisheries for chinook salmon were added in the summer and winter months, said Pat Pattillo, salmon policy coordinator for WDFW.

"Selective fisheries are just one of the management tools we can use in our effort to recover and protect wild salmon populations," said Pattillo. "By adding these fisheries, we were able to meet our conservation goals and allow anglers some great opportunities to fish for hatchery chinook in Puget Sound."

The increase in hatchery catches has been helped by the acceptance of the new regime by Puget Sound tribes. In a Mar. 20 letter to Washington Congressman Norm Dicks (D), Billy Frank Jr, chair of the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission, said they supported these fisheries "...and the development of this management tool. Mark-selective fisheries, like all other fisheries, must however contribute to achieving stock recovery objectives and appropriate effort must be taken to monitor their impacts on unmarked/natural populations. Our support for this management tool is evident by the fact that over half of the Puget Sound recreational fisheries are now mark-selective, by agreement of the co-managers."

Harvest managers also expect an abundant pink salmon run this year. About 5.1 million pink salmon are expected to come back to Puget Sound streams, nearly 2 million more fish than forecast in 2007. Pinks return to Washington's waters only in odd-numbered years. -B. R.

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