Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife
Contact: Anne Pressentin Young (503) 947-6020
Internet: www.dfw.state.or.us Fax: (503) 947-6009

For Immediate Release Monday, March 01, 2004

First commercial spring chinook fishery to occur Tuesday on the
Columbia River

CLACKAMAS - The states of Washington and Oregon working as the Columbia
River Compact today authorized a 16-hour commercial gillnet fishery for
Tuesday in the lower Columbia River for hatchery-bred spring chinook. The fish caught by commercial boats in this fishery are prized for their flavor and will soon be found in local restaurants offering fresh local seafood and specialty markets. Spring chinook provide tremendous economic benefit to both the commercial and sport-fishing industries because of its high quality and because it is the first fresh non-farmed salmon of the season.

The commercial fishery will begin at 5 a.m. and conclude at 9 p.m. on Tuesday, March 2, from the mouth upstream to Kelley Point, which near the mouth of the Willamette River. Another 16-hour fishery may occur Thursday, March 4, depending on the results of tomorrow's fishery. A decision will be made at 1 p.m., Wednesday.
Commercial fishermen must use gillnets that have mesh openings no smaller than 9 inches and no larger than 9.75 inches to lessen the
chance that steelhead will be caught in them. Nets may not be in the
water longer than 45 minutes before being brought in the boat for fish removal. All fish that are not adipose fin-clipped spring chinook must be released. Boats must have a recovery box on board to revive all lethargic or bleeding wild salmon or steelhead before being returned to the water.
Fish biologists from the Oregon and Washington departments of fish and wildlife predict the total run of Columbia River spring chinook will be the second-highest since 1938, when counting began. About 500,000 wild and hatchery spring chinook are forecast to enter the Columbia River in 2004. Of the total run, 70-80 percent are marked by a missing adipose fin to designate them as "keepers." Biologists estimate a total mainstem harvest of about 50,000 hatchery-bred spring chinook, split between sport anglers and the commercial fishing industry.

Fish managers set the Columbia River spring chinook fishery based on the number of fish expected to return from the ocean and the allowable impact to wild salmon and steelhead stocks listed under the federal Endangered Species Act. "Impacts" are the unintended mortalities associated with handling and releasing wild fish. The allowed non-Indian impacts are 2 percent of the total runs of ESA-listed Snake River spring chinook, Upper Columbia River spring chinook, and Columbia Basin winter steelhead.

The total 2 percent allowable impact is split 1.2 percent to the sport
fisheries and 0.8 percent to the commercial fishers for the 2004-2005 fisheries.
Sport angling will continue during the commercial fishery.

It is pretty sad that they have to resort to netting in rivers, pretty sad.

The WDFW and the courts are always talking about these seeminly fair allotment splits, ie, 50 percent to this group, 25 percent to that group, etc, etc. It all sounds great except for one small oversight......two of the three principle groups count their numbers in the hundreds or maybe thousands while the third group is comprised of millions of people. What's up with that???

If engineers and/or math teachers ran the show this sort of thing would not happen!!!

If it were engineers running the show we would get this years rules a year from now...

Guys, here is your chance to do what your gramp papa used to do; hangem all and hangem high.

Anyone?

Like Grandpa2 said, it won't be just one dead wild fish but a bunch of wild and illegal dead fish.

If it is not a "Stupid-Ass Law", what is it then?

150 fathoms?

150 fathoms = 900 feet = 300 yards = 3 football fields = cleaning 'em out!

That is a lot of net. If they let the net out at 40 feet/minute and then immediately pull it back in at the same speed stripping fish as they wind it they could just stay within the 45 minute maximum soak time.

I'm sure they can let it out much faster than 8"/sec (40'/min) but the pause between letting it out an bringing it in must be rather short.

Unfortunately there won't be anyone timing the soak time on the water and there won't be anyone making sure the revival tanks on board actually have water in them. Commercials have fish tickets you know...they are the only ones you can really trust to report their catch accurately. hahaha

I think, though I'm not sure as I don't have it here in front of me, that they have separate time limits for "put", "soak", and "pick"..."put" time starting when the first buoy hits the water and ending when the last one leaves the boat, "soak" starting there and ending when the first buoy is back in the boat, where "pick" time starts, ending when the last buoy clears the gunwale.

Fish on...

Todd

Todd,

The regulation defines soak time as the time when the first mesh hits the water until the time the last mesh leaves the water. 45 minutes is a pretty short soak for 150 or 175 fathoms. It will be hard to comply if a net picks up much debris. I've seen 3 hour pick ups out in the San Juans when the net picks up a bunch of dogfish or ratfish on a reef. Ugly work! I'm not sure what debris and bycatch occurs on the CR, tho.

The saddest thing about this fishery is that WDFW actually seems to think there is a need for it. There isn't. No public interest is served that cannot be alternatively served with reduced impact to listed fish. Changed my mind. It's not sad. It's stupid.

Sincerely,

Salmo g.

Words of wisdom, Salmo.

I just sent two emails to friends who work in upscale restaurants. I figure if I can dissuade even one restaurant from serving this fish, then I've helped in a small way. If enough people stopped buying the fish, maybe the markets will help to eliminate this fishery.

This issue is an easy one to argue to anyone. We pay more to raise the hatchery fish than the commercials receive for them. So, both from economic and environmental standpoint, it doesn't make sense.

Everyone should let people know that they should think twice about buying Columbia River spring chinook. It's the best tool we have in our capitalistic system.

Sea-Clair: You may have a solid point. A protest of Indian net fisheries can and probably be seen as racist, but not a protest of non Indian net ting of chinook which as we all know kills threatened steelhead and wild chinook.

If someone will volunteer to gather e mail, addresses for Seattle's top restaurants, I will volunteer to write a short that anyone who wants to can copy and send to the restaurants - and to the Seattle papers!