Published June 2010 The Reel News,
Columbia River Region Column
Shad, Steelhead, Salmon & Sturgeon
Spring chinook was super but short, Steelhead outlook outstanding, Shad fishery kicks off, Rooster Rock sturgeon fiasco, Gillnet ban stalls, Bounty fishing underway, Cowlitz fish plan delayed, Judge cans Koenings’ grazing, Buoy 10 coho, Bad birds, Dam spill and more…..
By Terry W. Sheely
June is roaring down the Big C like snowmelt gone wild, carrying a boatload of news including:
* Wrap-up results of a spring chinook season that was both outstanding and short of expectations,
* Promise of a super steelhead summer,
* Near certainty that Oregon’s petition drive to eliminate gillnetting on the Columbia won’t make this year’s ballot,
* Kick-off of the annual fishing for dollars program targeting predatory northern pikeminnows,
* A rare ocean fishery for kings,
* Coho forecast dim,
* Arguments about dam spills, and birds,
* Sea lion feast hits record,
* Long awaited Cowlitz fish plan delayed—again.
* And a judge who said she was shocked by how WDFW, under the thumb of ousted Director Jeff Koenings’ railroaded a plan over the objections of staff scientists in order to allow private ranchers to run cattle on east side elk and deer winter range for free, and for a governor’s good graces.
* And more…..
Let’s get started.
Spring Chinook
Closures & Openings
Still gun shy after blowing two years of spring chinook forecasts, WDFW and ODFW shut down this year’s banner springer season 22 days early because of what they called, “uncertainty surrounding the upriver run size.”
While it’s still looking like we’ve fished a great springer year, it’s also starting to look certain that the actual run will fall 130,500 or more salmon short of the 470,500 springers the states had forecasted. May 9 was the last day to fish for spring chinook and steelhead between Bonneville and McNary dams, a season that was originally scheduled to remain open though May. By the closure anglers had boated 3,400 chinook in the area.
The Technical Advisory Committee which steers the fishery is now saying that the above Bonneville springer run will top out at around 340,000 chinook. That figure is far below the pre-season 470,500 salmon predictions of ODFW and WDFW but is still the second or third-largest upriver run on a record since 1938.
The closure affects both salmon and steelhead from Tower Island power lines in Bonneville Pool upstream to McNary Dam, plus Washington bank between Bonneville Dam and the Tower Island power lines.
You can hit the water again on June 16 when the scheduled hatchery summer chinook and hatchery steelhead seasons open above Bonneville Dam.
The springer season was not closed on several tributaries including the Hood, Deschutes, Umatilla and Snake rivers, and opened on the Wallowa and Imnaha rivers.
The states’ also re-opened the chinook sport fishery in the Select Areas – Young’s Bay, Blind Slough, Deep River and Knappa Slough -- after test fishing found few upriver chinook remaining in the Select Areas. Almost all the chinook in the re-opened water are hatchery fish.
Downriver Salmon
Record Wrap-Up
It wasn’t the super-monster springer year that was forecasted below Bonneville, but by any measure it wrapped up as a great one.
Records tumbled during the March-April fishery from I-5 downriver before the April 18 closure.
For the record: From Bonneville to the mouth of the Columbia sport fishermen logged 166,027 angler trips which is the heaviest fishing pressure since 2002, and boated a record 29,125 fin-clipped chinook.
The previous record was 25,700 springers caught during the boom spring in 2001. Gillnetters in the mainstem and off-river Select Areas killed 18,000 springers.
WDFW and ODFW have forecasted a return of more than half a million springers below Bonneville and 470,500 above the dam. They didn’t make those rosy numbers by a good margin, but still it was a great season.
The tribes above Bonneville had a horrible and costly season netting their 12,000 springers.
High winds sank tribal boats and three Yakama Tribal fisherman drowned. Two days before the fatal windstorm another gillnet boat capsized near the Highway 97 Bridge at Maryhill and two others were swamped while manning some the 465 nets in the three pools. Those crews were rescued and WDFW and ODFW gave the tribes additional time to duck the winds and remove nets.
Shortfall Closes
Snake R. Kings
The 130,500-fish shortfall in the expected run of 470,500 upriver kings prompted WDFW to shut down the Snake River springer chinook fishery in late May, earlier than originally expected.
Closed areas are near: Southbound Highway 12 Bridge upstream about 7 miles to near Ice Harbor Dam. Railroad Bridge, about 0.5 miles downstream of the Tucannon River mouth, to the Corps of Engineers boat launch upstream of Little Goose Dam.
From Casey Creek upriver 6 miles to below Lower Granite Dam. From Blyton Landing Boat Launch 12 miles above Lower Granite Dam to the boat dock behind the Quality Inn in Clarkston.
Will Gillnet Ban
Make Nov. Ballot?
It’s looking increasingly doubtful that a grassroots Oregon push to ban non-selective gillnets from the Columbia River will be finished in time to make the July 2 deadline required to get on Oregon’s November ballot.
After a setback over legal wording from the Oregon Attorney General’s office, leaders of the Coastal Conservation Association (CCA) said they still hoped to get the controversial issue on the fall ballot, but had also developed a fallback plan that if necessary would see the initiative petition drive postponed to the 2012 vote.
There’s still a slim chance that CCA will be able to finalize petition wording and collect the 82,769 petition signatures required to make this November’s ballot, but it would take a Herculean effort and with less than a month to work is extremely doubtful
Late last month, Bryan Irwin, CCA Executive Director, told TRN, “We are still at a bit of a flat spot on the ballot initiative while the legal guys wrestle with the language.”
Irwin said earlier that CCA had “met with Northwest Sportfishing Industry Association (NSIA) and will be letting them take a look at the revised language. It would be great if they would lend their support. I would think a gillnet ban would be something we can all get behind.”
NSIA spokesmen have said the group is opposed to CCA’s push for an outright ban on gillnets and instead is arguing to have gillnets moved off the mainstem Columbia into bubble areas where they can selectively gillkill hatchery fish that were genetically imprinted as smolts to return as adults to specific estuaries. This would, they say, minimize incidental bycatch mortality of gill caught ESA listed and non-targeted salmon, steelhead, sturgeon and other game fishes.
The CCA and NSIA organizations are the two powerhouse advocacy groups for sportfishing in Oregon.
SAFE Zone
Nets Score!
Commercials shunted to off-channel netting zones this spring where they specifically targeted hatchery salmon are doing just fine downriver. In fact they set a record for catches despite reductions in soak time. The non-tribal gill-net fleet landed 17,531 spring chinook in four off-channel select areas; Youngs Bay, Blind Slough and Tongue Point on the Oregon side of the river and Deep River on the Washington side.
The old record was 11,699 for 2002's winter-spring-summer select area fishing season.
"We didn't even fish that hard," ODFW’s John North said. [Curious use of the pronoun We.]
Some scheduled industrial fisheries in late April and early May were cancelled because too many upriver spring chinook were being netted; fish headed for upriver tributaries in the Snake River and Upper Columbia tributaries where spring chinook stocks are protected under the Endangered Species Act.
The off-channel success supports a push by the NSIA sportfishing group to restrict industrial gillnets to off-channel SAFE zones in order to minimize bycatch of ESA listed wild salmon, steelhead and non-targeted fish that passing in the mainstem.
SAFE is an acronym for Select Area Commercial Fisheries, which are designated off-main channel areas where hatchery fish return after being raised and imprinted in net pens. Returns to SAFE areas are almost all hatchery salmon with few wild or ESA salmon or sturgeon caught as “incidental bycatch.”
“Outstanding” Steelhead
Season Predicted
From Tongue Point upriver to the I-5 bridge the Big C is again open to catch-and-eat adipose fin-clipped steelhead and adipose fin-clipped jack salmon (less than 24”). Daily bag limit for steelhead is 2 per angler and for five for jack salmon.
“If early indications in local rivers are a barometer of what’s in store for steelhead anglers this summer then fishing should be outstanding”, predicts Trey Carskadon, Government Affairs Director for the Northwest Sportfishing Industry Association.
The forecast for this year’s summer steelhead run is expected to be strong. Last year resulted in historic highs with all-time daily records for fish passage broken at Bonneville Dam. Preliminary Steelhead passage over the Dam has started out even higher than in 2009 and the ten year average.
The northwest is expecting to see a full season for summer Chinook with no closures expected for the first time in 40 years; some good offshore salmon opportunity; a very good Buoy 10 chinook season and good Columbia River fall chinook returns.
Fin Clips For
June Kings
Fin clip requirements have come to the ocean king fishery, but it’s a part-time law that is allowing us a rare June chinook opening.
For the first time, the Pacific Fishery Management Council (PFMC) has adopted ocean salmon rules for Washington, Oregon and California, that include a June 12-30 season off Ilwaco, Westport, LaPush and Neah Bay specifically for fin-clipped hatchery kings.
Angling will be allowed daily, with a two-hatchery-chinook limit and a catch quota of 12,000 fish. The minimum size is 24 inches.
The extra ocean fishing time is a harbinger of what is shaping up as a stellar king season.
If you want to tangle with big ocean kings and lots of them, mark the calendar and book the boat. This is the year.
A huge run of almost 653,000 fall chinook is expected to return to the Columbia by fall, which if it happens will be a whopping quarter-million more than last year. The strong forecast included an expected big return to Spring Creek National Fish Hatchery and other Columbia hatcheries, which are the backbone of the ocean sport chinook fishery.
Phil Anderson, director of WDFW is optimistic that by going with a fin-clip requirement in the ocean, “we can meet our conservation goals and give anglers additional opportunity to fish for hatchery chinook.’’ Expect the June chinook season to be monitored closely as WDFW collects data for future hatchery-only seasons.
The fin-clip requirement for kings comes off during the July season.
Coho Outlook
Still Dim
Coming off last year’s incredible coho fishery, the outlook for this year is anything but bright.
Coho action will start off the Oregon and southern Washington coast on July 1. The catch quota is just 33,600 coho and to get an idea how few coho we’ll see in the landing net remember that last year the quota was 88,200.
The forecast for the Big C coho return is 389,500, compared to a return a year ago of 1,055,500. Early coho will be only 245,300 fish compared to 681,400 a year ago, and the forecast for late silvers is 144,200 compared to 374,100 in 2009.
The ocean season that begins July 1 will have a two-salmon limit, but only one can be a chinook. WDFW plans to revaluate the run in mid-July July 14 to consider increasing the bag limit to two chinook. To confuse the issue, just a little bit more, WDFW is not requiring that chinook caught in the July 1 season be fin-clipped. All coho, though, that are kept must have a missing adipose fin.
Coho fishing will begin July 4 at Westport and July 1 at LaPush and Neah Bay.
Buoy 10 —Begins Aug. 1 opening the lower 16 miles of the Columbia River from Buoy No. 10 at the river entrance upstream to Tongue Point in Oregon and Rocky Point in Washington. This mega popular fishery will be open for both coho and chinook with a two-fish limit, but only one chinook, until Sept. 1, when all chinook must be released.
Lower Columbia — Fall salmon fishing from Rocky Point-Tongue Point upstream to Bonneville Dam is set to open Aug. 1, but only one adult chinook will be allowed per day. Starting September 12 the only place on the river where kings can be kept will be upriver from the mouth of the Lewis.
Dart A Mess
Of June Shad
Shad fishing is a hoot and June is the prime fishing period.
Millions of these acrobatic scrappers will be pouring into the Big C (some into the Willamette) and most of them will be wedged into current seams between Beacon Rock State Park and Bonneville Dam.
These non-natives weigh 2 to 5 pounds, jump like electrified tarpon, pull hard, eat small lures and arrive by the millions—2 to 5 million most years.
While there are regionalized fisheries at the mouth of the Washougal and Sandy rivers, John Day Dam and in the Bonneville Pool, the big fishery breaks out from Bonneville Dam downstream to the mouth of the Willamette with some pretty productive stops at Washougal, Camas, the mouth of the Sandy and Beacon Rock State Park.
Like salmon and steelhead, shad are anadromous. Unlike salmon, they do not necessarily die after spawning. They surge into the Big C to spawn when water temperatures are between 50 and 60 F which puts the peak of the action between Memorial Day and the middle of June. There’s no limit, no minimum size, no problematic restrictions. Catch all you want.
Best action almost always falls to boaters who can anchor up in a fast run and feed lures downstream along the bottom to wobble and flash in front of arriving shad. But bankees can do just fine in several spots.
Hottest of course is smack below Bonneville Dam, working the huge schools that jam up there before plunging up the fish ladders. A popular fishery at Camas Slough is mostly a boat show, although some shad are taken from the Steamboat Landing dock in Washougal.
To find productive shoreline access, head east from I-5 on Highway 14 about two miles past the little town of North Bonneville. Look for a set of transmission towers and a cutoff to the right onto an access road. Go either upstream toward the dam or downstream. This road opens better than three miles of river for bank fishing.
WDFW recommends four specific sites to try in the Bonneville area:
Cascade Island: The best side of the island is the Spillway Dam side. This area is usually open for access before the shad season opens on May 16.
The North Shoreline below Second Powerhouse Dam: Start at the deadline and work the shoreline a few hundred yards downstream. (Note--fishing is allowed to within 600 feet below the dam. The deadline is marked by a yellow line painted on the rocks.
Transmission towers: A good bank and boat spot to try when the water is high.
Boat ramp area: Downstream from the Hamilton Island boat ramp to the end of the access road, try any little point or eddy where you can cast to the current seam. Walking upstream from the boat ramp, there is about a three-block piece of shoreline with good spots all along.
Below John Day Dam: Primitive shore access is available, if you can ferret it out, between Maryhill Park and John Day Dam.
Shad are great sport, and if you do it right, they’ll push a youngsters button so hard they’ll forget about video games—at least for the rest of the day. Later in the month, the survivors will be swarming into the area below John Day Dam.
Fishing Tactics
Look for fast current where the flow forces the fish close to shore. Shad will be staging and holding inside the current while swimming upstream.
In a boat, find a current seam where the river narrows, or there is a bend and the river will pick up speed going around the corner. The higher velocity can act like a current funnel, putting the shad right in front of you.
The best places to cast are where the water is between four and 10 feet deep, no more. You'll take most of your shad within 30 feet of the bank. Casting beyond that is generally wasted effort.
Cast upstream at about a 45-degree angle, approximately 30 feet out. Let the lure sink and follow it downstream with the rod tip until it is opposite you. Then, let the current start to pull it. If the water is shallow and your lure starts banging rocks raise your rod tip and slowly reel to swim the lure up the slope of the rocks. Long rods will prove their worth here.
Hot Lures:
Beads: Inexpensive and smokin’ effective, bright beads are great shad lures. String two or three beads of varying colors (red, coral, metallic, etc.) on the line, in front of the hook.
Flies: Artificial flies on a size 4 hook, with a sparse white body and red or yellow tail, work well.
Shad darts: This lure is the same general color, pattern and shape as the shad fly. It usually needs no added weight. Crappie" jigs in bright red, white or silver colors will also catch shad.
Spoons: A lightweight, wobbling spoon about one and one-half inches long can be effective, especially from a boat. The spoon is more expensive than beads and darts, though, and you should be ready to lose a pile of gear in these toothy rocks.
Spinners: Small silver-finish weighted spinners will take a share of fish, especially from shore where they can be cast and drifted with the current. As with spoons, the biggest disadvantage is the expense when you tangle with rocks
Lower Yakima
Salmon Opens
With a super-sized run of chinook headed up the Yakima River, the Yakama Nation and WDFW have agreed to open the lower river to salmon fishing through June 30. The open water is from the I- 82 bridge at Union Gap (river mile 107.1) to the BNRR bridge 500 feet downstream of Roza Dam.
Terminal gear is restricted to one, single-point, barbless hook with a hook gap from point to shank of 3/4 inch or less. Bait is allowed but the standard night closure is in effect.
And yes, the Yakima is one of those tributaries where the new $8 Columbia River Salmon/Steelhead Endorsement is required.
Rooster’s Sturgeon
Rocked To A Close
Sturgeon were packed like sardines into the Sand Island slough off Rooster Rock so thick that success was a given. Sturgeon boats were wedged into every anchorage, and by the time that ODFW and WDFW slammed the door on “all fishing” including the sturgeon fishery, up to 1,700 sturgeon had been caught—more than the entire rest of the river from Bonneville to Wauna.
The last place left on the Big C to fish for the plate is outside the Sand Island closure and below Wauna.
The smokin’ hot sturgeon zone off Sand Island was in a shallow flat at Rooster Rock State Park and success was so high that ODFW feared that if they didn’t take emergency action to shut it down the last week in April the catch rates would “put the rest of the Wauna to Bonneville sturgeon season at risk,” warned John North, ODFW’s manager of Columbia River Fisheries Program.
The total harvest guideline for the 100 miles downriver to Wauna is 4,835 sturgeon, North points out, and the Rooster Rock sturgeon-fest accounted for a third of that entire allocation.
The emergency closure was imposed to protect the fishery in the rest of the river, ODFW said. The closure, to all fishing for all species, will go through July 31 between the upper and lower ends of Sand Island and markers on the Oregon shore.
The catch-and-eat season is already closed in Bonneville and John Day pools, where harvest quotas were reached in March and April, but catch-and-release continues.
C&R is allowed between Bonneville and McNary dams through December. Except, and it’s a major exception, in the spawning sanctuaries between the Rufus grain elevator and John Day Dam in The Dalles Pool and from the Highway 395/I-82 Bridge upriver to McNary Dam. The sanctuaries are closed to all sturgeon angling through July 31.
The Willamette River, Multnomah Channel and Gilbert River are closed for sturgeon but scheduled to reopen Nov 1.
Where To Eat A Sturgeon
The last areas open to fish for the sturgeon smoker on the Big C are downriver from Bonneville, except for the Sand Island-Rooster Rock area closure and a closed spawning sanctuary upstream of Skamania Island which will remain closed until September. Above Wauna, the mainstem sturgeon action is scheduled to continue through July 31.
Below Wauna, from River Mile 40 to the mouth, the catch-and-eat sturgeon fishery is open through June 26, but could close earlier if the allocation guideline of 9,600 is caught.
NOAA Launches
ESA Review
What’s really happening with endangered steelhead and salmon in the ocean?
That’s the question in front of NOAA Fisheries which has initiated a mandatory five-year review of Pacific salmon and steelhead runs that are listed under the Endangered Species Act.
ESA salmon runs up for review are: Puget Sound chinook; Lower Columbia River chinook; Upper Columbia River spring chinook; Snake River spring/summer-run chinook; Upper Willamette River chinook; Snake River Fall-run chinook; Hood Canal summer-run chum; Columbia River chum; Central California Coast coho; Southern Oregon/Northern California Coast coho; Lower Columbia River coho; Snake River sockeye; Lake Ozette sockeye; Sacramento River winter-run chinook; Central Valley spring-run chinook; California Coastal chinook;
Steelhead runs up for ESA review are: Puget Sound; Upper Columbia River; Middle Columbia River; Snake River Basin; Lower Columbia River; Upper Willamette; South-Central California Coast; Central California Coast; Northern California; California Central Valley; and. Southern California.
Feds Okay Dam
Spill—Reluctantly
With gritted teeth and open reluctance, the feds have agreed to spill water at Big C and Snake River power dams to benefit downstream migrating steelhead and salmon smolts.
But they are not happy and while agreeing to the spill they also continued to barge-truck some juvenile fish from Lower Granite, Little Goose and Lower Monumental dams.
"While we have reservations about leaving juvenile fish in-river during these low flow conditions, implementation of a mixed strategy of spill and transport for 2010 will allow us to gather additional information," according to an addendum to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' 2010 Spring Fish Operations Plan.
The nearly month-long spill took place in April. The Obama administration, like the two Bush administrations before it, would rather hold the water for power generating and barge smolts. The courts disagree.
Consistent federal court orders have ordered the feds to allow springtime spills for anadromous smolts.
Instead, NOAA Fisheries argues for an alternative barging operation that it claims is backed by "the best available science." New NOAA Fisheries analysis of smolt-to-adult returns from 2006-2008 out-migrations showed that transported fish outperformed, for the most part, salmon and steelhead that migrated in-river to the sea. That finding is particularly true for May, they say, and in low water years such as 2007, according to the federal agencies.
That claim is disputed by salmon managers, upriver tribes, and sport-fishing organizations who are giving much of the credit to outmigration spills from a couple of years ago for this year’s monster spring chinook return and forecasted super fall chinook run.
The Washington Department of Ecology has also come out against dam spills denying a petition for spill filed by industrial and sport fishing associations and conservation groups. Neighboring Oregon, however, is supporting the spill movement to benefit salmon and steelhead. Hmmmm.
Buzz That
Bird, Florence
Double-crested cormorants are getting the buzz down at Florence.
Using high-speed boats, ODFG is rousting cormorants that have jammed into the lower Siuslaw River to gorge on outward-bound salmon and steelhead smolts that are exceptionally vulnerable while acclimating to saltwater. Most of the hazing takes place upriver from Florence.
Cormorants are protected by the federal Migratory Bird Treaty act and can be thick in the Siuslaw. A few miles south near the mouth of the Umpqua River, stark stands of roosting trees are visible from Highway 101 that have been killed by cormorant excrement. Under federal law the state is allowed to harass and haze, but not kill the black fish eaters.
ODFW plans to keep buzzing the birds until June 20, and says it’s, looking for long-term solutions. Considering the price of boat gas and staff harassers, I certainly hope they find one quickly.
Get Off The
Dam Dime
A coalition of businessmen, fishermen and inland-empire water users is asking Washington’s senators to get bureaucrats and stakeholders off the dime and make decisions about the future of Snake River Dams, water and fish.
Dustin Aherin, a third-generation Lewiston-Clarkston resident and chair of
Citizens for Progress warns that “There are serious consequences for our region if we continue to drag our feet in resolving the salmon crisis. Uncertainty is hurting Clarkston and Lewiston. We can’t develop our urban waterfront, make sound transportation decisions or plan for the future until we know the long-term future of the lower Snake River dams.
“We have an opportunity to build a plan that solves more than just the salmon problem,” the group said in an open letter to Senators Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell, published in the Spokane-based Pacific Northwest Inlander.
The group represents more than 50 business owners and community leaders weary of indecisions about dam breaching, and salmon recovery programs that are creating social and economic problems that extend well beyond salmon.
The past decade has witnessed bitter political struggles that most observers see as just a fight between salmon advocates and river users. Thirteen salmon and steelhead stocks remain listed under the Endangered Species Act despite 20 years of litigation and billions of dollars spent on failed restoration efforts.
The struggle is more than that, they say. “Our coalition of fishing businesses and conservation groups recognize that for salmon restoration to move forward it must work for our farmers, shippers, energy users and riverside towns,” said Sam Mace, Inland Northwest Director for Save Our Wild Salmon.
The group wants a sit-down with all the stakeholders that will produce decisions and a set a course for the future.
Haven’t heard back from the senators, but I’m sure we will.
Details on this power group at: www.workingsnakeriver.com/letter.
Fishing For
Cash Begins
Fishing for dollars has re-started on the Columbia, moving into its third decade of killing northern pikeminnows (AKA squawfish) for cash rewards. A bounty of $4 to $8 per fish will be paid on each northern pikeminnow 9 inches or larger through Sept. 30 in the Columbia downstream of Priest Rapids Dam and the Snake downstream of Hells Canyon Dam.
In the past 30 years the program has removed more than 3.5 million northern pikeminnow from the rivers, cutting predation on salmon and steelhead smolts by an estimated 37 percent.
Eric Winther, WDFW project leader is expecting an above average bounty season.
“We usually have our best seasons in low-water years, and this looks to be one of those,’’ he said. “I expect fishing to be fairly good right off the bat, and if it is, we’ll probably finish above our average of 175,000 fish per year.”
The first 100 pikeminnow an angler catches per season are worth $4 each. After 100 fish, the reward jumps to $5. After 400, the bounty is $8. There also are special tagged pikeminnow worth $500 each. Sixteen registration stations are located between Cathlamet and McNary Dam, including the Ridgefield, Marine Park, Port of Camas-Washougal and Beacon Rock State Park boat ramps.
The most pikeminnows were tallied at Boyer Park at Lower Granite Dam on the Snake River, with The Dalles Boat Basin finishing second. According to checkers, the best catch per day is posted at the Ridgefield boat ramp where anglers turn in an average of 9.3 bounty fish.
For registration rules and details check www.pikeminnow.org
Sea Lion Gorge
Sets Record
Hopefully it was just because there were so many springers to eat that the sea lion gorge set a heart-breaking record below Bonneville Dam this year.
Through April 28 the "expanded" sea lion take of chinook salmon had reached 3,435, which is the highest recorded through that date since 2002. The expanded number of fish taken includes observed weekday, daylight predation extrapolated to include weekends.
More bad news: Nearly half of the California sea lions seen this year are first-timers at the dam
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers sea lion specialist Robert Stansell, says, "That's kind of disturbing" In the past two years 30 sea lions have been removed, including nine this year but it now appears the killed or permanently spooked sea lions are being replaced by the newcomers.
Observed sturgeon catch has reached a record of 1,100 (1,683 expanded by interpolating for weekends), however Stellers have switched to salmonid prey as the chinook have become more abundant. That sturgeon take by sea lions is up from the previous high of 758 last year.
Most of the sea lions will leave the dam after the spring chinook run—if that’s any consolation.
Respectfully Ignoring
Animal Rightists
On a side note, last month Oregon Speaker of the House Dave Hunt sponsored a “community” meeting to kick around the sea lion predation impact at Willamette Falls.
Sports groups were heavily represented, NSIA, CCA, Steelheaders, and a good mix of unaffiliated —a hundred or so, plus tribal reps according to best estimates. It was such a good representation of reasonable fisher folks that it simply overpowered an extreme animal rights group which showed up with the usual disruptive disrespect.
According to attendees, the sport fishing and tribal representatives held their tongues which made a positive impact on the politicians in attendance, and after the disruptions continued with the business of finding a solution to the predation impact on salmon, steelhead, and sturgeon at the falls.
Along with the tribal representatives the salmon and sport fishing groups, “shared our perspective that lethal removal is the best tool we have available in curbing the appetites and predation of salmon in the Willamette and Columbia,” said NSIA’s Trey Carskadon.
Hunt appears to be, “a state legislative leader who understands the importance of sports fishing to our economy,” according to Carskadon.
Good job all. Our fish need solutions not silly posers.
Thief Trout
Limit Tripled
Fearing that by mid-summer the trout in Thief Valley Reservoir will be high and dry, ODFW has lifted the 5-fish limit and replaced it with a 15-fish daily catch with no minimum size. Fisheries managers say they are expecting a water shortage that will reduce levels at the eastern Oregon reservoir enough by mid to late summer produce a summer kill of stocked rainbow trout. The reservoir is on the Powder River near Baker City.
Cowlitz Study Stalls,
Advisors Sought
The long-awaited and much anticipated Cowlitz River management plan seems to be headed for yet another year in limbo.
The new management plan was to have been unveiled last spring, a goal that WDFW’s Region 5 manager Pat Frazier excused as “overly ambitious” and then rescheduled for release this fall.
Apparently that date too just went overboard.
Instead of announcing WDFW’s management plan for the hugely popular steelhead and salmon river, last month instead announced another delay in order to put together a “Cowlitz River Advisory Group,” and give the 12-member ad-hoc group a “about a year” to come up with recommendations that can be plugged into the state’s management plan.
Getting the management plan together and on the water is considered critical to rebuilding the once-great river’s famous fishery, to the point where it again becomes a productive salmon and steelhead destination draw fit for bookings by working guides, and possibly retake its seat at the top of the angling popularity ladder.
A major focus of the group will be to “advise” WDFW in updating its fishery and hatchery management and establishing Tacoma Power's obligations to support hatchery production and fish management activities in the Cowlitz Basin.
Those advisers will have their plates full—trying to balance robust hatchery fisheries with delusional recovery efforts for wild salmon and steelhead that may not even exist.
Specific issues will include the quantity and size of fish produced at the Cowlitz Hatchery Complex, rearing and release protocols for each stock and strategies designed to maximize the natural production of fish stocks and species in the basin. Also in the plan are fishery management strategies, including monitoring and evaluation efforts that support conservation of naturally produced fish and sustainable fishing opportunities.
Director Phil Anderson says the value of the end result outweighs the delay. "Efforts to restore salmon and steelhead and provide sustainable fishing opportunities on the Cowlitz River are at a critical stage" Anderson said, adding "We want to draw on the expertise of others to promote progress."
Now a cynic might point out that WDFW has a solid history of using ad hoc committees as scapegoats for delays and ill-considered management schemes and for only listening to advisors who parrot WDFW’s pre-ordained agenda.
Hopefully, under the Anderson administration, none of that now applies and the advisory recommendations—including those from consumptive sport fishermen—will be fairly heard and evaluated.
This is a good chance for Olympia to step up. The Cowlitz and her fishermen deserve it. Hopefully it will happen.
“Shocked” Judge Cans
Koenings’ Grazing Plan
Remember five years ago when WDFW’s now-ousted Director Jeff Koenings’ engineered a scheme to let private cattlemen graze range cattle on public deer and elk range in southeast and central Washington—to “improve it”? And then muzzled expert critics within his department?
Well, Thurston County Superior Court Judge Paula Casey has looked over the scheme and came away just as stunned by Koenings audacity at privatizing public wildlife lands without scientific justification, as did every wildlife manager, hunter, watershed supporter, fish conservationist, range manager and biologist who saw it, including this columnist.
“I was quite shocked," the judge said in a quote that appeared in the Seattle Times. The judge said she was surprised to find that scientists within WDFW had very harsh criticism of the program, yet the managers who were guiding the plan "instead of responding with any scientific information countering the information advanced by the biologists seemed more concerned about minimizing the effect of the warnings," the judge found.
Koenings’ plan had the support of Gov. Chris Gregoire securing Washington Cattlemen's Association support. The signed agreement allowed the cattlemen to run cows at no charge on public wildlife lands vital as winter range for deer and elk. Koenings’ theory was that cropping grasses would stimulate feed growth.
Surprise! Some of the first results of Koenings range improvement were ranchers who ran too many cattle on deer and elk acreage and allowed grazing too long in one place, damaging not improving critical winter habitat.
Judge Casey has ruled that the department had no scientific basis for granting permits for grazing the lands on the promise that the program would benefit wildlife, including elk.
Koenings replacement, WDFW Director Phil Anderson, who was Koenings’ assistant director, has sidelined the controversial grazing plan saying he wants to assess the pilot program before continuing, while confirming that he does not favor initiating future cattle grazing until the assessment is completed.
WDFW biologists and others say the grazing is deteriorating not only big game habitat, but damaging watersheds and negatively affecting fish in the Columbia River basin.
This is just more evidence and indications of how many decades it will take Washington to undue the damage to our fish and wildlife left blackened in the legacy of Dr. Jeff Koenings, Phd.