The lower Columbia Spring Chinook fishery will close tonight at 12:00. Because Tribal & Federal fish managers cannot agree on incedental ESA chinook by catch, the season will close today. The Tribes want to fish untill the 9% ESA fish are taken while WDFW & ODFW want a 1200 ea for sport & commercial fishery wich would result in a 1 % ESA catch. It will be difficult for the tribes to explain this one.

Hi Barnyard- I got your message. Let me know if I can help out your causes by posting Alliance info. on our board.- Note: Either WDWF &/or ODWF filed an injunction against the NMFS to possibly get the Columbia opened as soon as Sunday; wdatch the news.- Tight lines, Steve

This gets worse! As of Wednesday, NMFS has issued the permit, but now the states of Wa. and Or. are in dispute about some other issues and are not opening the season. Could "fisheries management" be mutually exclusive words?

There's a story (the first one shown)on the WDFW web site. It's a must read for those of us that fish the Columbia and tribs. I think WDFW has a legit gripe here..Check it out.....Thanks.....

Read the story; was about what I expected.

It became clear to me some time ago that ESA means only the tribes will be allowed fishing and long term the FEDS will run Oregon and Washington fisheries. Sports fishing for salmon is over - at least in the terms we know it in past years. The FEDS protected the spotted owl and other species at any cost and will do the same for salmon. The people who are going to be in shock are the taxpayers when they get the increasing bills driven by resource protection.

In my opinion, sports fishers made a serious error when they joined the gear wars where they fought the commercials and allowed outselves to be divided into trollers, river fishers, salt water types etc. We should have banded together. The old story, divided we fall.......hopefully the alliance will help.