Friday Added To Lower Columbia Springer Extension

Lower Columbia managers have added tomorrow, Friday, May 24, to the spring Chinook season extension approved last week, per a notice sent out late this morning.

Catch rates over last weekend’s initial three-day opener were low, just about one-third of the 346 upriver mortalities a day that had been expected, WDFW Columbia manager Ryan Lothrop said yesterday, and that means that there is room for an additional day to fish while staying inside the balance of 2,914 available upriver mortalities.

It means that the big river below Bonneville Dam will be open May 24-27 and June 12-15 for hatchery spring Chinook and then June 16-19 for hatchery summer Chinook.

Springers are open down to the Rocky Point-Tongue Point line, summers to the Astoria-Megler Bridge.

Details are also coming out about Monday’s 12-hour nontribal commercial tangle-net fishery in the Lower Columbia. An initial landing report posted yesterday shows 42 adult hatchery spring Chinook and nine jack Chinook along with 6,140 shad were landed in 14 deliveries, based off of fish tickets received by ODFW and WDFW. Per Lothrop, shad are not considered bycatch as they can be sold by the netters.

The opener was controversial among anglers who saw it as undermining Columbia River reforms meant to move the gillnet fleet from the mainstem to off-channel bays juiced with additional hatchery salmon releases and paid for via a special $9.75 endorsement fee. The DFWs saw it as allowable under current management policies and part of maintaining commercial fishing infrastructure on the river.