Headlines

There’s a $10,000 fish swimming in Oregon’s Coquille River, where the 2nd Annual Small Mouth Bass Derby kicks off on June 3 and runs through September 10.

“This should be called a draft preservation policy not a conservation policy.” “Thanks to the commission for moving in the direction of conservation of wildlife and the environment rather than giving in to those whose main interest in wildlife is consumption.” Those are just two of at least roughly 700 comments so far on the Washington Fish and Wildlife Commission’s unsettling new draft Conservation Policy, which is open for input through June 30.

For the second year in a row, a portion of Lookingglass Creek in Oregon’s Union County will open for hatchery spring Chinook, starting June 3, which falls on the start of the state’s Free Fishing Weekend.

With the feds breathing heavily down their necks, “intensely frustrated” state managers had to shut down hatchery spring Chinook and steelhead fishing on the Lower Columbia effective tomorrow after Endangered Species Act limits on listed salmon were exceeded.

WDFW announces spot and non-spot shrimp openers for several Central and South Sound marine areas.

Late May 2023 spring Chinook, steelhead and shad catch stats for the Lower Columbia and its Southwest Washington tributaries.

WDFW announces that the upcoming Cascade River and upper Skagit hatchery spring Chinook fisheries will open Wednesdays through Saturdays.

Oregon fishery managers say “human error at ODFW and compounded by infrastructure issues” led to the loss of steelhead smolts that will affect the 2024 and 2025 fisheries on the Rogue and 2025-26 fisheries on the Coos.

Buried deep in the minutiae of the pending 2023-24 Washington fishing regs are rule changes that Forks-area steelheaders and salmon anglers may want to make their thoughts known about in the coming two weeks.

Like a pitbull that won’t let go of a little kid, the Wild Fish Conservancy is continuing to try and derail increased hatchery Chinook production for Washington’s imperiled resident orcas after a federal judge ruled against the organization’s bid to halt what’s known as the prey program.

WDFW and ODFW extended the hatchery spring Chinook fishery on the Lower Columbia by 11 days, with season now running straight through Sunday, June 4.

The third petition in a year to list a coastal Northwest salmonid population has been filed with the feds, with two environmental groups calling for Olympic Peninsula and Chehalis River spring Chinook to be placed on the Endangered Species Act list.

Oregon’s second of three 2023 Free Fishing Weekends is coming up on the first Saturday and Sunday in June, and along with free fishing, clamming and crabbing across the state, ODFW is planning nearly a dozen Family Fishing Events that weekend as well.

Oregon State Police wildlife troopers say a Portland-area man has been indicted by a grand jury of 38 counts of unlawful possession/take of big game and four counts of felon in possession of firearms.

Idaho wildlife managers report three members of a family were recently found guilty of 10 felonies and eight misdemeanors after pursuing an elk herd in a truck and killing at least six animals and wasting four of them.

Mid- to late May 2023 spring Chinook, steelhead and shad catch stats for the Lower Columbia as well as Cowlitz, Kalama, Lewis, Wind and Klickitat Rivers and Drano Lake.

WDFW announces that two sections of the Snake River in Southeast Washington will open for a combined four days of spring Chinook fishing next week.

Washington wolves have “far exceeded” breeding pair numbers needed for delisting under the 2011 management plan, WDFW is acknowledging, but with packs slow to set up shop in the South Cascades, the agency is recommending only downlisting them from state endangered to protected-sensitive status.

ODFW and a local church are hosting the “most fun-packed family fishing event on the Mid Coast” this Saturday, featuring 1400 rainbows in Eckman Lake and a kid-friendly carnival just across the street outside Waldport.

Columbia spring Chinook managers approved six more days of fishing for the hatchery salmon below Bonneville Dam and the gorge pools above there.

With plenty of fish available in the quotas, Columbia spring Chinook managers will mull five-day reopeners on the lower river and gorge pools during a teleconference early this afternoon.

Officials have updated the upriver Columbia spring Chinook forecast to a “minimum” of 139,000 of the salmon and while a downgrade of 2023 expectations, they will huddle tomorrow afternoon to discuss mainstem recreational fisheries.

Oregon state wildlife managers say a Lincoln County mother and her son were fined $15,000 and have lost their hunting privileges for three years after illegally shooting and wasting a pair of black bear cubs last October.

Early to mid-May 2023 spring Chinook catch stats for the Cowlitz, Kalama, Lewis, Wind and Klickitat Rivers and Drano Lake.

ODFW reports that ongoing nearshore monitoring is “unlocking secrets about temperatures and oxygen levels known to impact groundfish and invertebrate activities, create stresses on ecosystems and even alter sport anglers’ catches.”

Highly litigious environmental organizations have a serious flaw in their upcoming pressure campaign to blast the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife for its allegedly “seriously flawed plan to liberalize the take of Chinook” this season.

Wolves have abandoned – perhaps only temporarily – one of the oldest pack territories in Washington after its lone male left the Teanaway last month, ending one of the most unusual chapters in Evergreen State wolf lore.

After weeks of refusing to crank over given the relatively large forecast, the spring Chinook count at Bonneville fired up the past two days with a combined 10,310 fish, giving hope that this year’s upper Columbia run is just woefully tardy due to a mix of environmental conditions.

Early May 2023 spring Chinook and steelhead catch stats for Southwest Washington’s Cowlitz, Kalama, Lewis, Wind and Klickitat Rivers and Drano Lake.

Oregon health and shellfish managers are reopening the North Coast from the Columbia south to Tillamook Head – 95 percent of the harvest comes off Clatsop County beaches – after marine biotoxin levels finally drop into the safe zone.

A federal judge in Seattle has adopted a recommendation to deny a bid to derail Northwest hatchery Chinook production increases meant for southern resident killer whales while apparently closing the lucrative Southeast Alaska commercial troll fishery for the salmon.

Five Western Washington tribes have filed paperwork in federal court to intervene in a Wild Fish Conservancy lawsuit targeting state hatchery salmon production in Puget Sound and the Lower Columbia.

Late April 2023 spring Chinook and steelhead catch stats for the Cowlitz, Kalama, Lewis, Wind and Klickitat Rivers and Drano Lake.

ODFW and state health officials are closing recreational crabbing on the Oregon Coast from 8 miles north of Winchester Bay south to Cape Blanco, including bays and estuaries, due to domoic acid levels and effective immediately.

Columbia pinniped managers say they have lethally removed two sea lions so far this spring at Bonneville, a tally that will bring inevitable “rookie numbers” memes given all the pinnipeds in the big river this spring, but operations are expected to continue at the dam into late May.

In a major announcement this afternoon, Seattle City Light is committing to adding up- and downstream fish passage around its three ladderless dams on the Skagit River as part of federal relicensing.