[3] Better Days Coming, Say Harvest Managers
West Coast salmon managers are looking forward to counting a lot more salmon this year, even in beleaguered California, where the fall chinook run may jump from last year's worst ever (40,000) to 245,000 fish. Both commercial and recreational fishers may get some fishing time in southern waters this year (see story 4).
However, regional salmon wonks are taking that forecast with a grain of salt. The 95-percent confidence interval for that 245,000-fish estimate ranges between zero and 533,000.This means they are 95-percent sure that the run will be somewhere between nothing and half a million.
The Pacific Management Council, in preparation to set fishing seasons for 2010, announced the numbers recently in its first preseason report. Staffers are still reeling from their 2009 forecast--which turned out to be 300 percent too optimistic for the unlucky Sacramento run, once the backbone of the California commercial salmon harvest. It's been victimized lately by poor ocean conditions and water fights.
"The forecast for Sacramento River fall chinook will undoubtedly draw the most attention, given the extensive fishing closures the past two years to protect this valuable run of fish," said council Chairman David Ortmann. "It is important to recognize that at our Sacramento meeting, we will be preparing three fishing season options for further analysis and public review, and won't make a final decision until the April 10-15 meeting in Portland, Ore."
The PFMC press release put a good face on its prediction and suggested that some ocean fishing opportunity existed for the Sacramento run this year. Coastal fishermen in northern California and southern Oregon are hoping they might get a bit of a commercial season this year, after spending most of the past two years tied to the dock.
The brightest spot in the California scene is the Klamath River, where the salmon runs were not as adversely affected by poor ocean conditions from 2004-2006.
With many more age-4 fall chinook expected to return this year than in 2009, the run should meet its rebuilding goal, said PFMC staffer Chuck Tracey.
That would mean a return of 40,000-plus natural spawners for the second year in a row, which would allow for some recreational and tribal fishing like last year, when 101,000 fall hatchery and natural adults returned to the Klamath. About 40,000 of them were harvested--36,000 by tribal fishers and 4,000 by recreational fishers.
Without fishing this year, the council estimates 86,100 natural spawners would return.
In the Columbia, forecasters are calling for an upriver bright return of 311,000 fall chinook, nearly 50 percent better than last year's return and better than the 10-year average by about one-third.
Lower Columbia wild fall chinook are expected to be better than last year as well, with a prediction of 9,700 adults--still well below the 10-year average of 15,000.
Another 90,000 hatchery fish are expected to return to the lower river, about 118 percent of last year's run.
The Spring Creek Hatchery return above Bonneville Dam is looking at the largest forecast on record--169,000 fall chinook. That is 345 percent of the 2009 return and 180-percent of the 10-year average.
Mid-Columbia brights are expected to do about as well as last year, with 73,000 predicted to show.
In Puget Sound, about 226,000 summer/fall chinook are pegged to return, a few thousand higher than last year's prediction. It also includes about 43,000 natural chinook. Last year's actual returns to the Sound are still being tallied.
Meanwhile, anticipation is growing for the upriver spring chinook run in the Columbia--estimated to be close to 500,000 fish this year. At last week's meeting of the Northwest Power and Conservation Council, IDFG staffer Ed Schriever said his agency expected about 28,500 wild spring/summer chinook will pass Lower Granite Dam this year, part of the 180,000-fish run.
IDFG's estimate is based on the differences between jack counts for wild and hatchery fish, said IDFG's Alan Byrne, who noted 2009's wild spring jack count at the dam was about 1.5 times higher than they have seen, while the hatchery jack count was about four times higher than what they've seen before.
IDFG's wild estimate is considerably less than the prediction from harvest managers on the basin's technical advisory committee, who have pegged the wild Snake spring run at 73,000 to the mouth of the Columbia. Byrne said TAC estimates are derived from fish numbers at Bonneville Dam and the Snake component is derived from the its proportion to the total dam count in previous years. IDFG's estimate, when backcast to the mouth of the river, would be in the 40,000-fish range.
In 2001, about 45,000 wild spring/summers returned to Lower Granite Dam, according to TAC figures, the highest number since the lower Snake dams were built. In 1995, only about a thousand returned. -B. R.
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