New Ocean Sport Salmon Action Notice

[corrirod]

Hot off the wire!

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6/20/08 ACTION NOTICE: NOAA Fisheries in consultation with the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, representatives from the recreational fishery, and the Pacific Fishery Management Council, has taken in-season action to modify the recreational salmon fishery in the area from Leadbetter Pt., Washington to Cape Falcon, Oregon (Columbia River Ocean Area).

ACTION TAKEN: The daily bag limit in this area will increase from one chinook per angler to two chinook per angler effective Saturday, June 21. In addition, during the all salmon season which is scheduled to open on Sunday, June 29, the daily bag limit will be all salmon, two salmon per day, and all retained coho must have a healed adipose fin clip.

RATIONALE: At the request of the fishing community, the bag limit adjustment was considered. The season structure in the area and the separate sub-limit on chinook was initially adopted to reduce the chance of exceeding the chinook quota early. After reviewing the first three weeks of the fishery, it appears that going to a bag limit that will include two chinook has a minimal chance of reaching the quota early.

[CATCH AND EAT]

Kind of a blessing and a curse. Glad we get to fish the nooks but they should have kept it one per day per person. this might help extend the few coho that we get to fish for. However, I am grateful they thought of us at the lonely CR.

[jacksalmon]

Does this mean that the effort is so low that the quota won't be used up quickly, so they might as well go to 2 fish? Or, does it mean that there aren't many fish there, so it doesn't matter whether the limit is 2 or 1, but if a bunch of fish show for awhile, the lucky anglers might as well get to keep 2 since the quota won't be threatened anyway? in a year when they are trying to protect fish, I wonder why they would bump up the limit in the middle of the season. I am not complaining, just wondering what is the reasoning. Any insights would be appreciated.

[corrirod]

It's probably a little of everything. Low success, due in part to lower success and a lack of accessibility due to inclement weather, and the fact that there was an ALL SALMON season coming anyway. During the ALL SALMON season I would imagine they expect a lot of fishers to keep their coho, thus limiting the amount of chinook taken.

Just my .

[Highmark]

well if the catch rate is as it was the firsrt 3 days of the season. we got
our 12 fish in 2 to 3 hrs of fishing each day. I have not been back due to
work. but the fish are out ther is force.And there are a lots silvers to.
for every nook we picked up we had 2 some times 3 silvers on the hooks.
there are more than not....

HM

[O Tshawytcha]

Any recent reports? Forecast is looking good for tommorow!
Thanks,
GRIFF

[BIGALSURF]

I am thinking this season is going to be a real eye opener for salmon managment, we limit our chinook cause there's not many Sac. R. chinook, but find there's ample chinook offshore that head up the Columbia, because on Vancouver Island they reported 590,000 chinook headed to the Columiba. As far as coho, there may be few natives so we have to limit the catch, but find there's huge numbers of hatchery coho that we can't catch cause we'll bycatch/kill the natives.

So we'll be fishing out in the ocean catching a huge number of fish with gazillions left to catch and the quota will be filled and that will be it until we discover that the coho are in the river and as typical they rush through the river straight to the hatchery and the only ones that really get many are, you guessed it! The gill netters, who justify it cause they're all bound for the hatchery!

Seems like an impossible problem to solve. I bet at some point we say, ok, we give up on native coho, and we're building the world's largest coho hatchery in a river off the end of the Columbia R. and you can fish for 4 coho a day all summer and fall in the ocean.

[beachboi26]

im starting to think that there are more fish out there then they even realize. I agree with big S