Sport anglers get one more shot – Saturday – during the early season in pursuit of spring chinook salmon spawners that are surging up the Columbia River.
Spring chinook anglers on the lower Columbia River will get at least six more days of salmon fishing under a season extension adopted Thursday by Oregon and Washington fishery managers.
Windy conditions for much of January and hazardous weather and a cold river during February reduced angling effort and catch this year, contributing to lower than expected harvest of white sturgeon in the Columbia River reservoir between Bonneville and The Dalles dams.
Anglers are still awaiting the annual arrival of salmon spawners to the Columbia-Snake river system, but salmon-sized fish are available for the taking as new Washington state walleye record holder John Grubenhoff of Pasco, Wash., will attest.
Recreational fishers say they will fight for a reversal of a decision made Feb. 7 by the Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission in a 3-2 vote to close off a popular section of the summer Columbia River Buoy 10 salmon fishery at Youngs Bay in Astoria to assure escapement to a terminal commercial fishing area inside the bay.
Anglers will have an additional 14 days of winter sturgeon fishing on the Columbia River between Bonneville and The Dalles dams this year under rules adopted Thursday by fishery managers from Oregon and Washington.
The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife last week announced the proposed boundaries and time period for a closure of the area at the mouth of the Youngs Bay at Astoria, Ore., to sport catch of salmon during the late summer 2014 salmon season.
Efforts to restore a population of native Lahontan cutthroat trout in McDermitt Creek in southeast Oregon suffered a setback earlier this month when biologists discovered a reproducing population of non-native brook and rainbow trout in the river.
It’s back to the past for operations at northern Idaho’s Albeni Falls Dam, which has over the past decade been manipulated on the assumption that maintaining a higher wintertime elevation of Lake Pend Oreille would enhance shoreline spawning of prized kokanee salmon.
Chinook salmon fishing will end on the Snake and Clearwater rivers Thursday, October 31 - except a short reach on the Snake River below Hells Canyon Dam, which closes November 17.
The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife on Wednesday opened sport fishing for hatchery steelhead on the mainstem upper Columbia River and in central Washington tributaries, the Wenatchee, Icicle, Methow and Okanogan rivers, until further notice.
The Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission during its on Oct. 4 in Newport approved a new fishing endorsement that will be required for anglers targeting salmon, steelhead and sturgeon on the Columbia and Snake rivers, and their tributaries, beginning Jan. 1, 2014.
More upriver fall chinook salmon are returning to the Columbia River than any time in the past 75 years, so Washington and Oregon fishery managers are expanding sport fishing options below Bonneville Dam beginning today, Sept. 13.
Great fishing for both anglers and gill-netters in the early fall season has prompted Oregon and Washington fisheries managers to take a conservative approach as the Columbia River’s fall chinook return moves toward what is normally its peak period.
There are great expectations for the late summer-fall fishing season on the Columbia River mainstem with fall chinook and coho salmon returns predicted to be at or greater than the 10-year averages, but anglers targeting steelhead trout may well face a short supply.
Anglers in central Washington have been given license to take non-native smallmouth bass and eastern brook trout, as well as native adipose-clipped rainbow trout, this summer as a means of reducing predation on freshly hatched steelhead in Salmon Creek, a tributary to the Okanogan River.
Confederated Salish-Kootenai Tribal officials say things have changed to a point where more needs to done, including netting of non-native lake trout, to save native bull and cutthroat trout in the Flathead Lake.
Oregon and Washington fishery managers decided this week that, with fish numbers –particularly those of sockeye salmon -- holding strong, both sport and commercial fishermen deserved more time on the lower Columbia River mainstem.
Sunday began a new season for anglers on much of the Columbia River mainstem with the target being primarily predicted strong returns of “summer” chinook and sockeye salmon, as well as steelhead.
Record-size fish might be hard to come by, but anglers should not go home empty handed from northeast Oregon’s Wallowa Lake, where fishery officials estimate the kokanee population has ballooned from 70,000 in 2008 to more than 900,000.
The 2013 spring chinook salmon return to the Columbia-Snake river basin has lagged behind expectations, but fishing opportunities persist, targeting hatchery produced fish while attempting to hold down impacts on naturally produced segments of the stock bound for spawning areas upstream of Bonneville Dam.
Anglers have to wait awhile longer to get back out on the mainstem, but lower Columbia River commercial anglers this week got a second shot at what has been a late-arriving, and under-performing, spring chinook salmon return to the mouth of the big river.
Columbia River anglers will be allowed to catch and keep white sturgeon in the Bonneville Pool four days in June under an agreement reached Tuesday by fishery managers from Washington and Oregon.
Sport fishing on the lower Columbia River remains closed as Oregon and Washington fishery managers await a swell of upriver spring chinook salmon that would at least give hope that the preseason forecast return of 141,400 adult fish to the mouth of the river can be achieved.
Starting May 1, anglers fishing for salmon or steelhead on the Columbia River and most of its tributaries downstream from Chief Joseph Dam will be required to use barbless hooks.
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