Feds To Go Fishing For Reach Chinook Fisheries Service To Set Out Nets To See If Mcnary Dam Catch Threatens Steelhead

The National Marine Fisheries Service will try to catch some of the 80,000 fall chinook expected to pass McNary Dam on the Hanford Reach later this month.

The fishing trip will begin next week, in cooperation with the state Department of Fish and Wildlife.

The Fisheries Service will set out drift nets for 10 days to try to determine if commercial fishing is viable on the reach.

The key will be whether it’s possible to net chinook without harming upper Columbia River steelhead, which were listed recently as endangered species.

“We have no experience with this fishery. We don’t know if we’re going to catch 10 fish or 1,000,” said NMFS biologist Peter Dygert.

The fish caught will be sent to food banks.

The returning Columbia chinook will not be caught on the lower Columbia River, closer to the ocean, because of fishing restrictions designed to protect Snake River chinook and steelhead. Those species are listed as endangered or threatened.

But that decision means many of the Columbia chinook will die before they can be caught, said Brian Gorman of the NMFS in Seattle.

Steve Fick, president of Salmon for All, a trade organization that represents commercial fishermen and processors, said commercial fishing options have been slashed over the past decade.

He said a test fishery on the Hanford Reach won’t solve the real problems.

“I think we’ve got much bigger concerns than harvesting a few ready-to-spawn fish,” Fick said.

Fick complained that the fish are not good for eating by the time they reach the Tri-Cities area.

“We should be looking at ways to catch that fish when it’s in prime shape,” he said. “When it has traveled 300 miles up the river, it’s not in the same condition it was when it entered the river.”