The Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission approved fishing seasons for wild coho as proposed as well as asked ODFW to look for additional late-season opportunities on three midcoast systems, but did not bite on another silver lining for the Umpqua today.
Seasons will begin on the North Coast’s Nehalem, Tillamook and Nestucca systems on a three-day-a-week schedule September 10, followed by daily fishing on the Siletz, Yaquina, Alsea, Siuslaw, Coos and Coquille systems September 13. Other streams and lakes open later in fall.
Daily limit everywhere is one, with three for the season on most systems except three lakes where it is five.
Oregon managers say the abundance of coastal wild coho is up this year to 289,000, which is the largest since 2012, and about 55,000 more fish than last year – good signs for a species that is “one of the closest listed” salmon or steelhead stocks to being declared federally recovered. ODFW’s fishery proposals were also previously reviewed and approved by NMFS but needed to be signed off by the commission.
While ODFW expects a “low return” to the Umpqua, the commission heard from anglers, guides and others who said the river’s mouth is “teeming” with wild coho, and they pushed in public comment and correspondence for a chance to fish for them and fuel the local economy.
But unlike with fall Chinook earlier this summer, the commission held firm and kept the river closed, disappointing them.
“Every basin in the state gets the opportunity to harvest wild coho inside the river this fall, except for the Umpqua. Baffles me!? Makes a girl sick when she sees all those fish inside the river with her own eyes, and yet the fishermen are entitled to zero of them!” said Sara Potter, who works at Salmon Harbor Tackle and Charter Service and, full disclosure, is a columnist for this magazine. “As if Chinook season ending just as it was beginning wasn’t bad enough!”
ODFW says that the parents of this year’s Umpqua run returned in 2022 in “very low” numbers, with none observed in the South Umpqua, and juvenile abundance the next year was the worst since the late 1990s, leading to low expectations this year. And due to impacts from 2020’s Archie Creek Fire on a hatchery program, no clipped fish are expect this year either.
Commissioners did say they felt “deeply sad” for the local communities that would be impacted by the closure, and they wanted to know the reasons behind the Umpqua system’s salmon struggles.
“Why is it so bad? Can someone explain what in the world is going on? How do we get it to turn the tide so we can stop with all of this bad news about the Umpqua?” asked Commissioner Leslie King of Portland.
Tom Stalling, ODFW deputy administrator for inland fish, said the Umpqua has had “environmental challenges for a number of years.”
“It started with summer steelhead – I think you remember that a couple years ago. Last year, it was fall Chinook … now it’s coho. That basin has had a number of environmental impacts. There’s been wildfires, there’s been severe temperature problems in that basin, and part of that is also affecting the predators that are affecting these fish as they outmigrate,” Stalling said. “We’re seeing that in other basins as well. The Coquille has had some problems. That’s kind of the context for why these fisheries are on the edge.”
ODFW and the Coquille Tribe have lethally removed over 40,000 smallmouth bass in the Coquille in recent years to help recover fall Chinook and they aim to open a king season this year for the first time since 2021. Hotter water drives up bass metabolism, making them eat more.
Anglers did successfully get Commissioner Bob Spelbrink of Siletz and others to ask ODFW to approach federal overseers about additional fisheries in the Siletz, Yaquina and Alsea Rivers late on in the season.
Given the compressed timeline, Vice Chair Becky Hatfield-Hyde of Paisley wasn’t sure how much fruit that would bear, but added, “I really like when small communities have additional hope, and if there’s a little more we can do for those communities that stays within our metrics, I say let’s do it.”
That’s exactly what happened with Umpqua fall Chinook earlier this summer.
ODFW had initially recommended a full closure on wild fish and limiting fishing for hatchery kings to the bank below the Highway 101 Bridge, but the night before the commission’s decision staffers developed a couple novel approaches.
Ultimately, what was approved was a 500-fish wild Chinook quota. So far, 85 percent of that has been reached, according to an ODFW update out this afternoon, leaving fishing open for Saturday’s Salmon Harbor Fishing Derby. After the quota is reached, however, salmon fishing is expected to close for the year on the mainstem Umpqua.
Making his pitch to the commission for late-season wild coho opportunities, guide Scott Amerman crunched past catch stats to propose adding 16 days in November on the Siletz, which he felt would provide time on the water while keeping overall impacts underneath the federal harvest maximum and allow for full seeding of the river and then some.
“By doing that, you also get diversity in returns so all the fish aren’t taken in the beginning of the season,” he said, adding that late-season fish were often larger after feeding longer at sea.
The commission voted 5-1 in favor of having ODFW explore late Central Coast wild coho angling options with NMFS and unanimously approved the original fishery package as proposed by staff.
