BY ANDY WALGAMOTT, NORTHWEST SPORTSMAN MAGAZINE
With a huge bite taken out of the small quota in just six days of fishing, sturgeon retention on the John Day Pool would close starting this Saturday, January 10, under a proposal Columbia River managers will consider during a conference call tomorrow.
Staffers from WDFW and ODFW are making that recommendation in a fact sheet out ahead of Thursday morning’s meeting, saying that the projected kept catch through Friday will hit 96 percent of the 105-fish guideline.
It’s not totally surprising.
With keeper seasons on two more productive downstream pools having been put on hold till sometime later this winter due to high past catch rates, Columbia River anglers who want to keep a diamondside have had only one option, the John Day Pool, and the weather so far really hasn’t really been stopping them from trailering further east on I-84 into the gorge. And a relatively warm December across the region kept water temperatures warmer than usual, making for better sturgeon fishing.
“Fishery monitoring indicates that effort in the John Day Pool fishery was somewhat higher than average on January 1 then dropped to average levels over the weekend. However, catch rates were about double those typically observed in this fishery during early January. Due to the high catch rates, harvest has accrued more quickly than anticipated preseason,” states the fact sheet.
The DFWs report that anglers have made an estimated 755 trips and harvested 88 sturgeon on the John Day Pool so far.
Seasons since 2021 on the pool have yielded about the same number of fish as 2026’s will have in the end, but also fisheries that lasted 77, 74, 72, 68 and 32 days.
Back in November when staffers and managers discussed opening this year’s only keeper fishery on the John Day Pool and holding off on the traditional January 1 openers on The Dalles and Bonneville Pools till midwinter’s coldest waters so as to provide longer, more meaningful seasons there, there were some concerns that it would just result in “effort shift” – that is, anglers switching over to the open reservoir.
Staffers said they hadn’t seen that in past years when The Dalles and Bonneville Pools were closed and the John Day Pool was open, but that appears to have happened. One close observer of Columbia River fisheries said a certain percentage of lower gorge fishermen had run upstream and found reasonable water temps and good weather there.
At the time last fall, Tucker Jones, ODFW’s director representative on the joint-state Columbia River Compact calls, acknowledged staff observations about a lack of effort shift, but pointed out that managers were also “doing something new. When you do something new, there is some risk.”
The risk was that the here-and-gone seasons seen on the Bonneville Pool in recent years would be seen on the John Day Pool. That now may be the case.
Under the staff recommendation, catch-and-release sturgeon fishing would remain open on the John Day Pool, as it is below there.
On Thursday, the DFWs will also consider a commercial smelt fishery on the Lower Columbia. It’s meant to continue gauging run strength to provide insights on possible tributary dipping openers, as well as provide commercial harvest opportunity.
WDFW has already lined out tentative dipping days on the Cowlitz, but openers are based on abundance seen in the mainstem. Managers expect a continuation of the downward trend seen the past three winters and say the run is likely to come in below the 10-average of 8.1 million pounds.
