The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Seattle District, water managers have released the planned Lake Pend Oreille elevations for Oct. 1-15. The Corps operates Albeni Falls Dam, which regulates the level of Lake Pend Oreille.
A new interactive Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife Web site offers a county-level view of the $2.5 billion spent in Oregon by fishing, hunting and wildlife viewing enthusiasts in 2008.
Starting April 1, Washington State anglers who fish for salmon and steelhead in the Columbia River and its tributaries will be required to purchase a new endorsement intended to help maintain and improve fishing opportunities throughout the basin.
It isn't exactly on the fish recovery front burner, yet a Kootenai Tribe of Idaho effort to rekindle populations of kokanee in Idaho Panhandle streams is showing signs of success.
The lower Columbia River commercial fleet got one last shot at spawning upriver fall chinook salmon this week, and anglers got a doubled bag limit in mainstem reaches between Portland and Bonneville Dam, with the goal of allowing each fishery's full harvest allocation.
Success in the Northern Pikeminnow Sport Reward Fishery Program may well be measured by anglers' declining ability to claim cash rewards for the removal of salmon-eating predators from the Columbia River.
With plenty of surplus hatchery origin coho salmon available for harvest, the states of Oregon and Washington this week approved additional commercial fisheries and liberalized daily bag limits for the Columbia River mainstem.
The first of several 2010 hatchery steelhead fisheries in central Washington got under way Sept. 4 with the opening of the Hanford Reach section of the Columbia River, according to the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife.
A highly successful fishing season has raised concerns that the spawner escapement to the mid-Columbia River's Hanford Reach will be less than desired to assure maintenance of the most heralded of the basin's wild salmon populations.
The total 2009 steelhead count at the lower Snake River's Lower Granite Dam has broken the record, and the so-called "wild" portion of the return is also the biggest on the books.
Sport, non-Indian commercial and tribal fishers this late summer and fall are sharing the wealth of strong returns of salmon and steelhead to the Columbia River basin.
Warmer water conditions are likely contributing to the bumper crop of pikeminnow that has been caught so far this year in the Northern Pikeminnow Sport Reward Fishery Program in the lower Columbia and Snake rivers.
A University of Idaho fisheries research group says some Columbia/Snake upriver steelhead populations are at risk as anglers cash in on the high numbers of steelhead concentrating in cool tributaries in western Oregon and Washington.
For the first time in recent history, the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife will open the upper Snake River for fall chinook harvest on Sept. 1.
The opening late last week of a first-in-recent-memory sport fishery for sockeye salmon in British Columbia's Lake Osoyoos has raised the ire of First Nations groups.
A 2009 Snake River summer steelhead run that could well break the existing record has allowed the Idaho Fish and Game Commission to expand harvest opportunities in the Snake, Salmon and Little Salmon rivers by nearly doubling bag limits on a portion of the big trout returning from the ocean.
Starting Tuesday, hatchery steelhead fisheries will open on the upper Columbia, Wenatchee, Icicle, Entiat, Methow and Okanogan rivers with a new inflated bag limit, according to the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife.
The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife will be placing radio tags in coho salmon bound for the upper Willamette River and its tributaries over the next three weeks in an attempt to better understand the movements of fish returning to the basin.
The 2009 season's string of peculiar, and for the most part unexplainable, Columbia River basin salmon and steelhead return numbers has continued into the fall with steelhead counts at Bonneville Dam mounting toward a potential record and fall chinook "jack" totals already in record territory.
CBB Shorts: Coeur d'Alene Kokanee Fishing; Wolves Killed In Oregon; Conservation Grants; Lake Pend Oreille Levels; Columbia Water Levels For Spillwall Construction
Based on the in-season projection through July 31, last month's steelhead catch in the lower Columbia River fell just short of last year's record July harvest (dating back to at least the early 1970s).
For a second year, the Colville Confederated Tribes are funding fish production at the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife's Colville Fish Hatchery, a state facility in northeast Washington that was slated for closure under last year's budget cuts.
The fall chinook salmon harvest season on the Snake River between Lewiston and Hells Canyon Dam opens Tuesday, Sept. 1, the same day Snake River steelhead harvest season opens.
Sport fishing for salmon in the ocean between Leadbetter Point, Wash., and Cape Falcon, Ore., will close Monday, Aug. 31, at 11:59 p.m.
But fishing opportunity remains at the mouth of the Columbia River at Buoy 10 where the coho bag limit was increased this week.
Anglers can look forward to large numbers of coho and improved returns of chinook salmon this year during the fall fishing season on the Columbia River, which kicked off Aug. 1.
An Earthwise Knowledge Initiative Publication
