By Joe DuPont, Clearwater Region Fishery
Manager, IDF&G
There certainly has
been a lot of discussion lately about what this year’s spring Chinook Salmon
runs may be like. So, I have provided the table below that shows the
preseason forecast for runs returning to the Clearwater Region.
This forecasts
was developed using last year’s Jack returns, and I emphasize that this is only
a forecast. Some years our forecasts are way off, and some years they are fairly close. If you are
wondering how this forecast compares to previous year’s returns, refer to the two graphs below that show the
number of adults (2 and 3-ocean fish) that made it past Lower Granite Dam over
time.
You will see that for the Clearwater River basin we are forecasting
a run (forecast in shown by the yellow circle) similar to what we have seen
from 2008 to 2012 where we had 7-day a week fisheries and seasons that lasted
into June if not later. The forecasted return for the Rapid River run
fish is more than double last year’s return but not as high as we experienced
in 2010 and 2011. In the past, runs of this size resulted in 7-day a week
fisheries that lasted into June. Chinook Salmon rules will be set on March
19-20 by the Commission, and rule proposals for the Commission will be
developed with input from the public.
Now that I have your
attention, I wanted to let you all know the dates and locations for when we
will be having our public meetings this year where we will discuss the this
year’s spring Chinook Salmon run for the Clearwater Region and how to best
structure our fishery around it. During these public meetings, we will
also present some of the new things we are learning in the Clearwater River
Basin and what we are doing to improve salmon runs there. We will also
give you an update on access issues on the Little Salmon River and what we are
doing about it. Finally, we will discuss last year’s Chinook Salmon
season, what we did about it and what we could do differently in the future.
These public meetings will occur as follows:
February 25,
2014 6:00 PM (Mountain Time)
Riggins
Salmon Rapids Lodge
February 26,
2014 6:00 PM (Pacific
Time)
Lewiston
IDFG Regional Office
February 27, 2014 6:00
PM (Pacific
Time)
Orofino
Clearwater Hatchery
I hope to see you at
one of these meetings. For those of you who can’t make it, we will
provide you opportunities to comment via e-mail. Stay tuned for these
e-mails.
Finally, I wanted to
share the article below with all of you that Eric Barker wrote last week for
the Lewiston Tribune. The IDFG regularly provides comments to Washington
and Oregon on concerns we have with how they manage their Chinook fisheries.
This article does a good of showing how difficult it can be at times for
changes to occur. Idaho will continue to work with these States on ways
to manage their fisheries so it will better meet the needs of all.
Idaho's chinook plea
denied by neighbor states
Oregon, Washington
allow for spring fishing season to carry on as usual
Posted: Friday,
January 31, 2014 12:00 am
By ERIC BARKER of the
Tribune
Idaho was rebuffed
after asking its neighbors to the west to delay fishing for spring chinook in
the lower Columbia River so more of them can reach the Salmon and Clearwater
rivers.
Ed Schriever, chief of
fisheries for the Idaho Department of Fish and Game, addressed senior fisheries
managers from Oregon and Washington at a meeting Wednesday in
Vancouver, Wash., in which the two states set fishing regulations for the
Columbia.
Idaho has long held
that lower Columbia River fishing seasons in March and April disproportionately
harvest fish bound for hatcheries on Idaho's Rapid and Clearwater rivers. Those
fish are among the first spring chinook to enter the Columbia each year, and
Schriever said anglers there catch many more of them than they do of other
stocks of spring chinook.
For example, he said,
juvenile chinook released from Rapid River account for about 11 percent of the
adult hatchery chinook that return to the Columbia each year. But they make up
30 percent of the harvest in the lower Columbia. Conversely, he said, there are
other hatcheries that account for 40 to 50 percent of the smolts released in
the basin but make up less than 10 percent of the adult harvest in the
Columbia.
He also noted that
harvest in the Columbia can curtail fishing opportunity and harvest in Idaho.
Between 2008 and 2012 he said 40,000 Rapid River-bound fish were harvested in
the lower Columbia, but Idaho sport anglers harvested just 26,000 fish during
the same period.
"Our request of Oregon and Washington is
to get a framework in place that more evenly distributes their catch target across all the stocks and not disproportionately on
the earliest arriving," he said.
Specifically, Idaho
would like the two states to hold off on allowing fishing above the Interstate
5 Bridge until May. But that would not be a popular move. Anglers, guides and
retailers in the lower Columbia are zealous about starting to fish in March,
when low and clear water is most conducive to catching spring chinook.
Tony Nigro of the
Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife and Guy Norman of the Washington
Department of Fish and Wildlife listened to Shriever's explanation of Idaho's
concerns. But they were not compelled to make adjustments. Instead, they
approved a lower Columbia fishing season that will open in March that is
designed to harvest the two states' share of fish by April 7.
Norman and Nigro also
noted the two states have adopted a 30 percent buffer to guard against
overharvest. Fisheries in the lower Columbia are designed based on preseason
run-size predictions. Those predictions are often wrong. In the past, when the
forecasts have been more robust than the actual returns, the two states have
harvested more fish than they otherwise would have been allowed.
Based on protests from
Idaho and tribes that fish on the Columbia River, Oregon and Washington now set
their harvest rates 30 percent lower than the run forecast would otherwise call
for.
Norman said the 30
percent buffer helps distribute the lower Columbia catch over a longer time
frame.
"I don't want
that buffer to be taken for granted," Nigro said.
Schriever said he
appreciated the Oregon and Washington listening to him, but he didn't buy their
argument and said even with a buffer they are targeting the early returning
fish bound for Rapid River and the Clearwater.
"How does that
not continue to target the front end of the run?" he said. "So I
asked for their consideration and they gave me none."
Allen Thomas of the
Vancouver Columbian contributed to the reporting of this story.
