2025 Columbia River Fall Salmon Fishery Plan Posted

Columbia fall salmon season dates, hatchery-Chinook-only retention periods, September river closures, a new boundary line for a super popular fishery near the mouth of the Lewis River.

All that and more is in the recently posted ODFW-WDFW non-treaty fishing plan for the big river along the Washington-Oregon border from the mouth up to Tri-Cities.

The annual management document outlines the managers’ thinking on recreational and commercial fisheries for fall kings and coho and serves as a bookend to the release of 2025’s fall forecasts last winter and the North of Falcon and Pacific Fishery Management Council processes that wrapped up earlier this spring.

Final word on the specific regs will be in each agency’s rules pamphlets and e-regs, but in the meanwhile, here are highlights.

The Buoy 10 management zone fishery – from the mouth of the Columbia up to the west end of Puget Island – is scheduled to be open August 1-6 for any Chinook and hatchery coho, goes fully selective August 7-25 for adipose-fin-clipped Chinook and hatchery coho, then switches back to any king and clipped silvers August 26-September 6. Daily adult salmon limit is two, no more than one Chinook.

While Chinook fishing is scheduled to close in these waters starting September 7, hatchery coho will be open through the end of the year. (Last year saw an 11-day king reopener in mid-September on these waters after a runsize updated allowed for it, though catch expectations were low, as most of the run had moved past.)

Managers report there are 41,000 Chinook and 34,300 coho mortalities (kept plus release mortalities) available for Buoy 10 anglers.

Moving upstream, the Columbia from the west end of Puget Island to the Bachelor Island-Warrior Rock line is scheduled to open August 1-September 6 for Chinook and hatchery coho, be closed September 7-30 for all salmonids, then reopen October 1-December 31 for hatchery coho only. Daily adult salmon limit is two, no more than one Chinook.

New for this year, the dogleg has been taken out of the Bachelor Island-Warrior Rock line, simplifying the fishing boundary. It is now defined as “a line projected from the Warrior Rock lighthouse to the marker atop the piling dolphin located at the downstream end of Bachelor Island on the Washington shore.”

Previous years have included the midstream red Buoy 4, resulting in an open-mouthed Pac-Man-like boundary to have to triangulate off of – the old line went due south 2,000 feet from the Warrior Rock light to the buoy, then angled northeast a similar distance to the dolphin, a wooden post, essentially, marking the edge of the channel near the mouth of the Lake River.

Per 2025 North of Falcon meeting materials, anglers were inadvertently crossing into the closed section of the Columbia “due to difficulties identifying proximity to projected boundary lines while on the water.”

One video recently posted on YouTube detailed how an angler received a $440 ticket last season after trolling into closed waters north of the deadline and landing a Chinook. (Per his roughly sketched map, he likely would have still been just across the line under this year’s regs.)

So staff at the DFWs talked with recreational fishing advisors to come up with straight, obvious line using known structures to make it easier to stay legal, all without impacting expected catches and salmon stock compositions.

From the new Bachelor-Warrior line up to Bonneville Dam, Chinook and hatchery coho fishing is scheduled to open August 1-September 17, close September 18-30 for all salmonids, and then reopen October 1-December 31 for hatchery coho. Daily adult salmon limit is two, no more than one Chinook.

The DFWs project 26,500 Chinook mortalities in these two stretches.

Above Bonneville, the mainstem Columbia will be open up to the Highway 395 Bridge in Tri-Cities August 1-September 17 for both Chinook and coho, close September 18-30 for all salmonids, then reopen October 1 through the end of the year for coho only. Note that wild coho hooked below the Hood River Bridge must be let go, regardless of fishery period. Daily adult salmon limit is two, no more than one Chinook.

Modelers expect 7,700 Chinook mortalities in the gorge pools.

Barbless hooks are required from Buoy 10 to the Highway 395 Bridge.

“2025 fall Chinook recreational fisheries were developed to reduce risk of in-season closures, aide in catch/stock estimation for in-season management, minimize effort shift, and limit additional regulation complexity,” states the DFWs’ fishery plan.

“The dates, area restrictions, and catch expectations described are based on preseason planning and input from the recreational fishing community. Actual catches and stock composition of the catch will be monitored in-season, and fisheries may be adjusted accordingly with short notice (e.g., less than 24 hours),” it adds.

Who knows what will actually turn up and how the fishery will play out, but for the record, this year’s fall Chinook forecast is for a larger run than last year’s actual return. 2024 produced the third highest Chinook harvest (31,850) and third best catch rate since 1980 between Puget Island and Bonneville; largest coho harvest (6,150) ever in that same stretch over the same period; 8th highest effort (117,900 angler trips) there too; second highest Chinook harvest (11,213) from Bonneville to Tri-Cities since 2015; and 12th highest Chinook harvest (18,394) at Buoy 10 since 1982.

Salmon managers’ 2025 plan also fleshes out non-treaty commercial gillnet fisheries. Those are scheduled to begin the week of August 3 and run into early September, initially two nights a week before ramping up to three. All are slated to occur in what are known as Zones 4 and 5 – the waters from, essentially, the mouth of the Lewis River up to Bonneville. A total of 32,900 adult Chinook and 3,400 coho are available for harvest.

There’s also a placeholder for a mid-September Chinook-directed gillnet fishery and a scheduled mid- to late September through October coho tanglenet fishery. A combined 9,600 Chinook and 14,900 coho are set aside for these mainstem comm ops.

In addition to laying out the salmon regs, the fall fishery plan details hatchery summer steelhead seasons on the Columbia. They look similar to recent years, with mainstem fisheries open through July from the mouth to The Dalles Dam, then closed through October. The waters from The Dalles Dam to Highway 395 are open through August, but then close September-December. I

There are also the now usual summer steelhead closures on the several Columbia Gorge tribs beginning July 1 (Washington) and July 15 (Oregon).

The plan also lays out sockeye and summer Chinook opportunities, such as they are and aren’t, goes into stock-by-stock fall salmon forecasts and Endangered Species Act limitations, allocations between the fleets, catch expectations, fishery modeling and goals, and all sorts of nap-inducing blah-dee-blah.

No offense, WDFW and ODFW staffers who put it together so that we could fish – heck, I think I’ll start catching up on sleep now so I can fish more this fall!