Columbia River

[Bill Monroe]

Surprise, surprise...Columbia River stays open Wednesday-Saturday below I-5 for at least this week...details in the paper tomorrow...

[Bounty Hunter]

:cheers:

[BrionLutz]

Bill,

Great and thanks for the news.

Surprising considering that the run seems to have declined Friday, Saturday and Sunday, looking like the peak is not going to happen and 2003 will be a bit over the 10 year average but not the killer year of 2001 and 2002.

Or did the biologists think the peak is still going to happen?

Brion

[monoman]

Brion
Chart the flows with the count. The state knows when the flows are to be increase to about 140, those days the count comes down from the days of flows around 100. They still say around 193,000.

[Pete]

Here's the official word:

For Immediate Release Monday, April 28, 2003

Lower Columbia River remains open to spring chinook angling for an additional four days

PORTLAND - With fishery impacts to wild salmon and steelhead below the allowed level, Oregon and Washington managers today kept open the lower Columbia River spring chinook sport fishery below the Interstate 5 Bridge.

The main stem Columbia River remains open to angling for adipose fin-clipped salmon, adipose fin-clipped steelhead, and shad from the mouth at Buoy 10 upstream to the Interstate 5 Bridge Wednesday through Saturday.

In addition, fishery managers shortened the spring chinook season above Bonneville Dam to the same four days per week, effective 12:01 a.m., Sunday, May 4. The area from the Tower Island power lines (about 6 miles below The Dalles Dam) upstream to McNary Dam is open Wednesday through Saturday. The upriver fishery closes after Thursday, May 15. The Oregon bank is open under the same four day per week rules between Bonneville Dam and the Tower Island power lines.

Fishery managers will meet again Monday, May 5, to reassess the size of the salmon run destined for areas above Bonneville Dam and make adjustments to the fishery. The lower Columbia River fishery could close at that time. The most recent forecast estimated 193,000 'upriver' spring chinook and 109,800 Willamette stock would enter the Columbia this year.

The Columbia River sport and commercial fisheries are managed to limit impacts to wild fish listed as threatened or endangered under the federal Endangered Species Act. Anglers may harvest only those fish that are marked as hatchery-bred with a missing adipose fin. However, some unmarked wild fish suffer a delayed mortality as a result of being handled. The allowable non-tribal impact for 2003 was set at 2 percent of the wild upriver spring chinook run.

Since the lower Columbia River opened to sport harvest of spring chinook, anglers have logged 141,200 angler days fishing for the large, good-tasting fish. Anglers have landed 22,800 fish and retained 14,600 hatchery-bred fish from areas below Bonneville Dam. Above Bonneville Dam, anglers have landed 1,140 fish and kept 640 hatchery-bred fish.

A total of 6,400 hatchery spring chinook have been landed in a main stem commercial fishery that occurred in March and other 'select' area fisheries that occur just off the main stem Columbia River near Astoria. The select area commercial fisheries continue into May.
###

Information and Education Division
Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife
(503) 872-5264 ext 5528

[BrionLutz]

Monoman,

Chart the flows with the count. The state knows when the flows are to be increase to about 140, those days the count comes down from the days of flows around 100.<font size="2" face="verdana,arial,helvetica">Fishitis did that and little correlation with flows and fish. The big factor was water temperature.

Temperature and timing would be things the fish could react to. Not sure how the fish would be able to read flows.

As the hydrologist from Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission noted, the flow is more important to the dry and smolts coming down river and in that case the fish don't "read" it so much as get carried down river by it.

Brion

[Bill Monroe]

The impacts still aren't quite up to critical. They also set the upper river into Wednesday-Saturday...
The run is a lot higher than thought, even though not the killer years. They've already allowed for the numbers (180,000 over the dam instead of 120,000).
they'll meet again in late May to decide when or if to reopen for summer chinook when that run officially starts June 1...
Still pretty good news considering.

[garyk]

I'd really love to see an economic impact analysis of

"anglers have logged 141,200 angler days"

- anyone from NSIA care to make an estimate?

[monoman]

Garyk
Even if you take the $100 a day standard, it adds up fast. There are some that believe this is low by about 40%. I know I spend more for salmon than any other type of fishing. This includes Flyfishing which is held as a high end fishery. I kept track of how much I spent on tackle and the boat last year, it was an impact in my house. Save your receipts and total your dollars spent, than send them to Salem.

Brion
Go back and chart the bonnie flows and the counts for the last month. The state uses this same info as part of the model when they talk impacts of a fishery. You will find larger counts on smaller flow days, it usually starts to slow the second day of larger flows. I don't have this weeks spill charts, but I think this weekend is smaller spill days.

[garyk]

Monoman - using your figures ($100 - $140), we’d arrive at a beneficial economic impact in the range of 14 to 20 million-dollars.

(I’m assuming your figures already contain the standard 2x to 4x economic multiplier factor?)

$20-million isn’t huge, but it’s certainly a shot in the arm for the Columbia region.

Very importantly, I suspect this impact is heavily skewed towards the small businesses that comprise the sport fishing industry, or otherwise benefit from it - tackle & bait, marinas, gas stations, guides, restaraunts, grocers, etc. Not to be overlooked is that this fishing money flowing through these businesses generally stays in the community, (rather than being banked out of state or distributed to shareholders as in the case big business).

Hate to beat a dead fish but....

Now imagine if the recreational fishery was extended by eliminating the ESA impacts of gillnetting. The commercials could still have their business by getting their choice of salmon by culling them at the fish ladders (selecting top quality, unblemished ones to get top dollar). Under such a scenario, we’d be maximizing the benefits of both commercial and recreational fishing - while NOT appreciably harming the underlying resource (staying within the allowable ESA impact).

It seems so Win-Win, why is it so impossible to achieve?

[monoman]

The $100 figure is direct, once mutipliers are imput these figures grow to become a large pile of taxable dollars!

[El-Kabong]

Where does $100 a day come from? Is that per angler?

[cosmo]

$100 per day comes from a 1996 Federal study on salmon fishing. The actual number is over $100--$106-$116, the specific escapes me. Taken into account are all items that go into the day, boats, bait, tackle, food, gas, travel, etc. What is even more impresseive is that it takes, and this is the lowest number I've seen, over 4 days on average to catch a keeper. So every sport harvested (dead) salmon injects over $400 into the economy.

[Silver Hilton]

Heck, those are cheap fish. I figure my cost per pound just got down to around $60 a lb. And that's after having a banner year! :shocked: