[3] Harvest Managers Expect More Fall Chinook This Year

Columbia Basin harvest managers expect about 20 percent more fall chinook to return in 2009 than last year, when nearly 450,000 made it back to the river, according to the July 16 joint staff report from Washington and Oregon fish and wildlife departments.

That puts this year's projection firmly in line with the average return over the past 10 years. It's also continuing an upward trend from the 219,000-fish return in 2007.

Upriver stocks will make up more than half of this year's run to the Columbia River mouth, the harvest managers say, including a 6,600-fish return of wild Snake River falls.

That's good news for the region, since the stock is listed for ESA protection and doing much better than in the 1990s, thanks to improved ocean conditions and a hatchery supplementation program.

With a projected 270,000-fish return, upriver brights bound for Hanford Reach are expected to make up a little more than half the total return, while Bonneville hatchery tules are not predicted to show up in as many numbers as last year. Only 58,000 are estimated--60 percent of last year's return and the 10-year average.

The wild lower Columbia fall chinook, the only other fall stock that is now listed under the ESA, should also do better than last year. Managers predict about 8,600--only 58 percent of the 10-year average, but about twice 2007's return.

Last year, the lower river wilds surprised everybody and showed up in about 90 percent better numbers than the pre-season prediction of only 3,800 fish.

Select area brights, the Rogue River-based chinook stock raised in net pens near Astoria to support a local commercial fishery, are also pegged to do well. About 12,000 are predicted to return, close to last year's number and well above the 10-year average. Managers say cuts in the ocean chinook fishery off the Oregon coast have helped improve the return.

Steelhead returns are expected to be close to last year's 355,000 fish, which was 18 percent above the 10-year average.

The Group B stock (hatchery plus wild) heading for Idaho is forecast at about 21 percent better than the 10-year average. However, the ESA-listed wild component of the "B" steelhead run is predicted to be only about half the size of last year's 18,500-fish return, which was the largest wild return since 2002, when 32,000 wild B steelhead returned to Idaho.

Huge numbers of steelheaad were counted passing Bonneville Dam last week, likely due to the fish moving again after piling up below the dam during the scorching heat in early August. About 125,000 steelhead were counted from Aug. 11-16. The 10-yr. average for that time frame is only about one-quarter of that number. Overall, this year's run of 323,000 steelhead is running 131,000 above the 10-yr. average of 192,000 fish.

Big expectations are also riding on this year's coho run, which is projected to show up in the 700,000-fish range, after accounting for 200,000 or so harvested before the run enters the river. Both early and late coho stocks are expected to show up 30 to 40 percent better than the recent 10-year average.

If the coho run materializes as expected, this year's return could be one of the best in the last 30 years. And current signals from ocean catches are already optimistic. If the run shows up as forecast, it would be the best count since 2001, when more than one million coho returned to the Columbia.

That million-fish-plus return was the flip-side of the La Niña bounce from earlier El Niño conditions and overharvest that decimated coho in the 1990s. Only 75,000 coho came back to the river in 1995.

This year's return of Lower Columbia chum, also listed for protection under the ESA, was not estimated by managers. In recent years, their numbers have declined from 2002-2004 returns. Last year, fish-per-mile observations for chum in tributaries declined to 255 from 1,634 in 2004. -B. R.

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