It will be interesting to see how it all pans out for both the sports fisheries and the commercial fisheries.
My concern is the low numbers of Tules.
It was the LCR Tules and the fall chinook in the Lewis (Tules?) that wreaked havoc with both the sport & commercial fall chinook fisheries last year and the commercial coho fishery.
How times have changed...
It used to be mostly the upriver stocks (URB's) that limited the URB fishery and the upper river ESA spring chinook that highly restricted the springer fishery.
Now it's the lack of Willy hatchery spring chinook (and other LCR trib's) constraining lower river spring chinook fisheries and poor returns of LCR tules that restricted the sport URB fishery last year!
We used to have a real liberal lower Columbia River fisheries and now that has changed to a more liberal upper river fishery and a highly restricted lower river fishery.
(I think it's an Idaho conspiracy).
How come the fish returning above Bonneville and the other dams are doing better than the LCR stocks below the dams? :smirk:
Maybe we need to build some dams in the lower river below Bonneville.
Well if the Lewis River fall chinook restrict the Commercial netters to above the mouth of the Lewis till October 16th as they did last year, I'll be happy about that again.
Gives ya a couple weeks of late coho fishing untouched by the netters to play with. :wink:
Although I still catch more than enough even when the nets are in.
Think Coweeman wild tules. And coming soon to a theater near you.......Grays river tules. Even though we hatcheried the hell out of them for 50+ years and then turned the spigot off. The Grays went from thousands to virtually nothing.
Now everyone is standing around scratching their heads wondering where all the tules went.
That is excellent news, much better than I expected based on earlier conversations with the Region 4 biologist. I'll be very interested to talk to him further and get some details on how that will split between the Snake, Reach, and Upper Columbia. For those that missed some earlier posts, last fall we had over 100,000 salmon across McNary Dam, which sounds great, but we ended up with less than 19,000 spawners in the Hanford Reach - less than a fourth of what this breadbasket of the URB run should be receiving to spawn - because an increased percentage of the run has been going up the Snake, upper Columbia past Priest Rapids, and into the PRD hatchery. The rising numbers on the Snake and upper C are great news, but we need to be careful not to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory by overharvesting these fish before they can get to the gravel. Please keep that in mind before you lash out at the agencies if the seasons this fall aren't as generous as you'd like to see them.
These numbers speak to the fact that pre-season forecasts lag behind the survival trends in the ocean.
In other words they tend to under predict when the ocean survival is on the upswing. They tend to over-predict when the ocean is trending toward a down cycle.
Actual returns could well surpass expectations by a BIG margin.
Add in the fact that BC/WCVI agreed to be a little softer on our stocks as they migrate past.
DFW's be damned, Team eyeFISH has much to look forward to in August! (Eternal optimist!)
These numbers speak to the fact that pre-season forecasts lag behind the survival trends in the ocean.
In other words they tend to under predict when the ocean survival is on the upswing. They tend to over-predict when the ocean is trending toward a down cycle.
This game isn't hard to follow. Look at the pathetic season last fall of 15 days. Now look at the wording of a dismal return of lower river tules. That right there is the demise of the bouy 10 chinook fishery.
I'd bet Ted Kulongoski's job on a shorter season than last year.
What happened to our springer season? Bigger run with less fishing time. Watch and see..................................
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