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PORTLAND -- Fishery managers from Oregon and Washington met in Portland today to update Columbia River salmon runs and review treaty Indian, commercial and sport fisheries in the Columbia River. With better than expected runs of chinook and steelhead salmon, the Columbia River Compact broadened all commercial and sport seasons along the Columbia River.
Starting Wednesday, September 29, 1999, sport anglers were able to retain chinook salmon throughout the Columbia River system to the mouth of the Columbia River at Buoy 10. The Compact suspended the sport chinook fishery on September 14 to lessen the catch of threatened Snake River Wild chinook. Adipose- clipped coho and steelhead salmon have remained open the entire season throughout the Columbia River system.
The Compact also added an additional day, September 30, 1999, to the existing commercial coho gillnet fishery from Buoy 10 to the Longview Bridge. Next week, an additional two days, October 6 and 7, 1999 will be open to commercial coho gillnet fishermen. This fishery will be open from, 7 AM to 7 PM, and includes gear restrictions of 6" maximum mesh, unslackened gillnets.
An additional Columbia River sturgeon and chinook gillnet fishery was added from 6 PM October 5 until 6 PM on October 7. This fishery will allow commercial fishermen access to the commercial sturgeon allocation and remaining chinook under the 1999 management agreement, while protecting state-listed Clackamas/Sandy River threatened wild coho.
The compact approved a treaty Indian commercial fishery in Zone 6 above Bonneville Dam to target salmon, including steelhead, walleye and shad. Sturgeon may be kept only for tribal subsistence purposes. This fishery will begin at 6 AM, Wednesday, September 29 and end at 6 PM on Saturday, October 2, 1999.
The next scheduled Columbia River Compact meeting will be held in the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife commission room at 2 PM on Friday, October 8 to consider treaty Indian commercial fisheries, unless salmon run updates show the need for an emergency meeting before the next meeting.
Uploaded: 10/2/1999
Uploaded: 10/2/1999