Oregon fishery managers have extended reduced daily bag limits for hatchery steelhead in the Snake River and tributaries, including the Grande Ronde, Wallowa and Imnaha Rivers. The bag limit of two hatchery steelhead per day remains in effect from January 1 to April 30, 2021.

A new survey of saltwater recreational anglers looked at their sources of information when it comes to fishery management and data collection. It found that their most used and trusted sources were friends, family, bait and tackle shops, and state and federal agency information such as websites and regulation guides.

Likely due to the Covid-19 pandemic, and recent smokey skies, the number of anglers this year participating in the Northern Pikeminnow Sport Reward Program is down 28 percent from this time last year. Currently, the 2020 harvest of northern pikeminnow on the Columbia and Snake rivers is on track to be the lowest on record.

With an in-season forecast this week increasing the Columbia River fall chinook salmon run by 13 percent, Oregon and Washington are opening fall chinook angling Saturday, Sept. 19, one week earlier than preseason fishery plans.

Although there has been no change in expected returns, passage of fall chinook at Bonneville is sufficient to reopen recreational angling opportunities for the fish from Buoy 10 to the Oregon and Washington border, according to the two-state Columbia River Compact at a hearing Wednesday, Sept. 9.

Oregon and Washington Columbia River fisheries managers doubled the bag limit for salmon at the popular Buoy 10 fishery from one coho to two salmon, one of which can be a chinook, Sept. 5 and 6, just in time for the Labor Day weekend.

A fifth Idaho angler has won $1,000 in the Lake Pend Oreille walleye lottery.

The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife will close the Snake River spring chinook fishery effective Friday while fall chinook harvest season begins on Tuesday, Aug. 18.

Washington and Oregon extended summer chinook angling through the end of July from the Tongue Point-Rocky Point line, near Astoria, upstream to the border between the two states at the Hwy 395 Bridge near Pasco, Wash. The popular Buoy 10 fishing will open August 14.

Oregon and Washington added seven more days – July 9 to July 15 – of recreational angling for hatchery summer chinook on the mainstem Columbia River, but closed shad fishing in the Bonneville Dam pool as a way to protect endangered Snake River sockeye salmon. Shad fishermen have been catching too many of the sockeye incidentally.