Headlines

Late October and early November 2024 fall Chinook, coho and steelhead catch stats for the Lower Columbia and select Southwest Washington tributaries.

The amount of hatchery steelhead genes in wild Snoqualmie winter-runs greatly exceeded allowable limits during a four-year monitoring period, and while the sample size was also relatively small, it led directly to this week’s news that the Tokul Creek program would be shut down.

Divers are cleaning the Lower Columbia and its tributaries of lost fishing gear, dozens of 360 setups at a time. Who are they, why are they doing it and what the heck do they do with all the still-usable gear?!?

A fifth-generation Baker City tree farmer and rancher has been named to the Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission.

Oregon fish and wildlife troopers are looking for leads in the case of a suspected poacher who has shot “numerous” does this month in the Trask Wildlife Management Unit of Yamhill County.

It’s the end of Tokul Creek Hatchery early winter-run production and crossed fingers that federal overseers will eventually approve a new state-tribal broodstock program for the future of consumptive steelheading opportunities on the Snoqualmie River.

Green means go for Marine Area 13 and Kennedy Creek chum salmon anglers starting November 1, per a rule change out this afternoon from WDFW.

Federal and state officials are offering $10,000 rewards for info on the poaching of a pair of Central Washington wolves earlier this fall.

The confirmation of CWD in two deer harvested in Wyoming and brought back to Oregon earlier this month has ODFW reminding hunters about carcass importation rules meant to stop the spread of the always-fatal deer family disease.

Washington shellfish managers OKed the next set of razor clam digs on the coast.

The Washington Fish and Wildlife Commission will get a good look at WDFW’s science and potential hunting frameworks for future black bear and cougar seasons when it convenes Friday in Ellensburg.

A Snohomish County man drove his side-by-side through a wild Chinook redd on a stretch of the Skykomish River that has been closed to all fishing this season due to critically low numbers of the salmon species.

Here is the schedule for and links to all 2025 events being held around the greater Pacific Northwest, including another new show launching, this time in Mount Vernon, Washington:

Washington wildlife biologists took samples from just over 100 deer for chronic wasting disease testing at 10 check stations during the second weekend of modern firearms season in Region 1, a bit more than were collected at both game checks and in the field at this same time last year.

Mid-October 2024 Chinook, coho and steelhead catch stats for the Lower Columbia, select Southwest Washington tributaries and the Hanford Reach.

Washington Coast winter steelhead forecasts are out ahead of this week’s town hall with anglers to begin shaping 2024-25 season proposals, and for a change the Chehalis prediction looks decent.

Idaho fishery managers continue to sound the alarm about walleye moving up the Snake and Salmon Rivers and say the nonnative fish “now occupy critical rearing and migratory areas of juvenile salmon and steelhead.”

The first salmon seen in Oregon’s Klamath Basin since 1912 was spotted in a trib earlier this week by state biologists following the removal of four downstream dams lower down in the watershed, and was hailed as “an exciting and historic development” by ODFW and one that is “overwhelming for our tribe” by the Klamath…

A public boat launch on the lower Snoqualmie River that’s provided access to the upper Snohomish and its popular coho and pink salmon fisheries for decades may be acquired by the Tulalip Tribes in the near future, a move that will leave anglers anxious about continued use of the site.

In a 5-4 decision, the Washington State Supreme Court upheld a lower court ruling that a Fish and Wildlife Commission member couldn’t hold another appointive position at the same time, a victory for a national sportsmen’s organization which had sued over the matter.

ODFW and RMEF teamed up to add another 1,073 acres to Northeast Oregon’s Minam Wildlife Area, which now covers just over 26 square miles of high-quality landscape.

Early to mid-October 2024 Chinook, coho and steelhead catch stats for the Lower Columbia, select Southwest Washington tributaries and the Hanford Reach.

A look toward possible winter 2024-25 Washington Coast steelhead fisheries, a glance back at last season and details on a one-year boat fishing study are all on the docket for a WDFW virtual meeting with anglers and others the evening of Wednesday, October 23.

Featuring a new concrete boat launch, paved approach and ADA loading ramp, along with other updates and restoration work, the Headquarters Unit of the Skagit Wildlife Area is reopening this Friday ahead of the start of waterfowl season on the popular North Sound delta.

There’s a new wrinkle for Washington deer hunters who might also have a cougar tag in their pocket come this weekend’s rifle buck opener.

Stocking young Chinook in a bad location led to the deaths of all 37,600 of the fish on an Oregon Coast slough, ODFW acknowledged in a joint statement with the Coquille Indian Tribe.

Early October and late September 2024 Chinook, coho and steelhead catch stats for the Lower Columbia, select Southwest Washington tributaries and the Hanford Reach.

The large fishkill seen last fall below Green Peter Reservoir was the likely death knell for the Willamette Valley impoundment’s popular kokanee fishery as court-ordered drawdowns for ESA-listed native stocks continue this year.

Summarizing her testimony to the Washington Fish and Wildlife Commission since her farewell address in March 2023, former member Kim Thorburn argues the body endlessly splits hairs over process, delays necessary actions, interferes with WDFW biologists’ and managers’ work and arrives at decisions that “create unnecessary conflict and anger,” to the detriment of conservation.

Washington game wardens only recently began wearing body cams, but newly released footage adds more details to a late-night break-in last weekend at a salmon hatchery on the Cowlitz River while providing a you-are-there sense of what goes into policing the state’s fish and wildlife resources.

The body of fishing guide Michael Shufeldt was found yesterday morning in the Columbia Gorge 1.75 miles downstream from where he and his boat went down last Wednesday after taking a large wave over the stern.