Sport fishing in Idaho generates hundreds of millions of dollars in spending every year, bringing much needed dollars to rural areas while adding millions in tax revenue to state coffers, say Idaho Fish and Game officials, based on the results of a survey.
For the first time in eight years, anglers can legally fish for bull trout
in Lake Koocanusa, Hungry Horse Reservoir, and the South Fork Flathead
River.
Fears that a late-timed 2004 spring chinook salmon return may also be less numerous than expected has prompted Oregon and Washington officials to close what has been productive mainstem Columbia River fishery.
Accelerating recreational catch rates on the lower Columbia River mean fish are present in relatively ample numbers, but upriver spring chinook salmon counts at Bonneville Dam continue to lag behind those that produced the bountiful returns of recent years.
The effective date for a recently adopted statewide moratorium on wild steelhead retention will be May 1, consistent with the start of the next fishing season, the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife announced this week.
Fishing of all kinds will close March 5 on the Methow, Chewuch and Wenatchee rivers to protect upper Columbia River steelhead listed for protection under the federal Endangered Species Act, the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife announced today.
In the 2004 and 2005 Columbia River spring chinook fisheries, sport anglers should be granted 60 percent of the allowable impacts to wild fish, and commercial fishers should get 40 percent, with in-season flexibility of up to 5 percent, the Washington Fish and Wildlife Commission has decided.
The fishery for hatchery-reared steelhead on the upper Columbia and Methow rivers will close Dec. 21 to comply with provisions of a federal permit that authorized fishing in those waters, the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife announced today.
Volunteers and Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife staff recently collected 105 adult hatchery steelhead in the lower Grande Ronde River as part of a multi-year pilot project aimed at increasing the number of hatchery steelhead returning in the fall to the Grande Ronde basin.
Fishing records broken for sockeye salmon, jackmackerel, and tiger trout.
Columbia/Snake river mainstem sport reward fishing season for northern pikeminnow ended Oct. 12 with anglers cashing in $1 million worth of vouchers for doing what researchers say is a job well done.
Washington's statewide annual limit for recreational sturgeon fishing will drop from 10 fish to five, beginning next April 1.
While bull trout reproduction in northwest Montana appears to be rebounding,
an official recovery of western Montana's bull trout will still depend
on the welfare of the species outside the state.
Recently completed surveys show a continuing recovery trend in spawning
streams in the Flathead and Swan drainages -- two of the state's largest
bull trout drainages. The number of gravelly spawning nests, known as "redds,"
has increased dramatically in many streams since low points of the ...
A decision to hold Idaho's Lake Pend Oreille at the traditional wintertime
level in 1999-2000 is being revisited after the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service expressed concern about potential impacts on bull trout listed
under the Endangered Species Act.
The Corps of Engineers, which operates the lake's outlet at Albeni Falls
Dam, has for the past three years only allowed the wintertime level to
drop to 2,055 feet above sea level -- four feet higher than normal. The
Corps maintained the ...
Sport fishermen were put on hold in the Columbia River below Bonneville
this week until state and federal officials can reassess the size of the
incoming fall chinook run and the combined impact that the recreationists
and tribal and non-tribal commercial fishers have had to-date on listed
Snake River fall chinook.
Representatives from Oregon and Washington fish and wildlife commissions
agreed Sept. 10 to suspend the sport-fishing season from the river's mouth
at Buoy 10 to ...
An independent survey of Idaho citizens found that the public would
support the use of state general funds to help finance Idaho wildlife and
linking the cost of hunting and fishing licenses to agency costs.
The survey was requested by a committee of Idaho citizens formed to
address Idaho Fish and Game funding and will be used to inform state legislators
in 1999.
Respondents were asked questions about proposed increases in hunting
and fishing license fees, and the use of a small ...
Recreational anglers, beginning Monday, Nov. 23, must release all sturgeon
caught from Bonneville Dam upstream to McNary Dam in the Columbia River
and its tributaries, say Washington and Oregon fishery managers.
Officials estimated that the harvest guideline of 560 sturgeon from
John Day Reservoir would be caught on or before Nov. 22. Therefore, effective
Nov. 23, and for the balance of 1998, anglers may continue to fish for
sturgeon in this reservoir, but all sturgeon must be ...
Anglers pulled more than 107,000 salmon-eating predators out of the
Columbia and Snake rivers during the 1998 Bonneville Power Administration's
Northern Pikeminnow Sport Reward season,
"We are extremely encouraged by the results of this program over
the past eight years," said John Skidmore of BPA's fish and wildlife
office. "Over one-million predatory northern pikeminnow have been
removed from the Snake and Columbia rivers since 1990. As a result of these
removals, ...
Fishery managers across the West face ever-more crucial choices as they
try to maximize anglers' pleasure while minimizing impacts of non-resident
fish on a growing list of threatened or endangered species.
That was the consensus of experts who presented their perspectives Tuesday
afternoon at a workshop titled "Management Implications of Co-occurring
Native and Introduced Fishes." Hosts for the Portland workshop were
the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife and the National
The Idaho Fish and Game Department is inviting the public to harvest
fish trapped in irrigation canals along the Boise, Payette and Weiser rivers.
The trapped fish enter the full irrigation canals during spring and
summer, but when fall arrives and water flow into the canals is curtailed,
cutthroats and hatchery trout, along with rough fish, such as squaw fish
and suckers, are left high and dry.
"In the old days, before construction of the Hells Canyon dams,
we saw some ...
Researchers are using statistics collected over the past year and a
half in an effort to visualize what shape sport fishing might take if a
decision were made to breach four dams on the lower Snake River to ease
passage for salmon and steelhead.
A pair of reports were delivered Thursday during the Corps of Engineers
annual research review of its Anadromous Fish Evaluation Program. Both
were done as a part of the Corps' ongoing Lower Snake River Drawdown Feasibility
Study.
The ...
Officials from both Washington and Oregon say no sport fishing closures
are anticipated as a result of a biological opinion released Thursday that
outlines allowable impacts from Columbia River fisheries on threatened
B-run wild Snake River steelhead.
"This biological opinion focuses only on steelhead," said
Steve King, salmon manager for the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife.
"It sets the impact limits that non-tribal and tribal fishers can
have on listed ...
A combined state and tribal supplementation effort has enabled fishery
managers to offer a lower Yakima River fall chinook sport fishery for the
first time in 34 years.
The season, the first since 1964, opened Sept. 1 and will run through
Oct. 31. The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife says that anglers
will take about 410 of an estimated 4,000 fall chinook expected to return
to the river this fall.
The river is open to fishing from its mouth to the Chandler ...
A record harvest this year in the lower Columbia River mainstem may push recreational fishers over their limit for returning fall chinook salmon, but Oregon and Washington state fishery officials have decided to stay the course.
Today's opening of the popular Buoy 10 salmon fishery at mouth of the Columbia River also marks the implementation of a few new fishing rules as anglers pursue fall chinook and hatchery coho salmon.
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