Chinook harvest plan leaves parties dissatisfied

ASTORIA, Ore. – Commercial and sport fishermen are unhappy about a proposed plan to split the lower Columbia River chinook harvest between them as the proposal heads to Oregon and Washington regulators next month.

The Columbia River Fish Working Group – a committee that includes three fish and wildlife commissioners from Oregon and Washington state – agreed this week on a recommendation for balancing the sport and commercial salmon fisheries.

The plan, which could last up to five years, edges commercial gillnetters out of any hope of a 50-50 catch share with sportfishers while introducing the possibility of a severe reduction to a 15-85 percent split when salmon are scarce.

The sport and commercial fisheries have to share the impact on threatened and endangered species.

The amount of wild fish impacts allocated to each group determines how much hatchery fish they can access during the season, and the perennial allocation decision never fails to spark heated battles between the two groups.

Under the working group’s recommendation, exactly what percentage of the allowable wild fish impacts each fishery gets would be managed by a matrix based on the size of the fish runs in the Columbia and Willamette rivers.

“As the Columbia River run size increases and the Willamette run size gets larger or smaller, it falls into different boxes on the matrix and different catch-sharing amounts,” said Steve Williams, fish division administrator for the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife.

The bigger the runs, he said, the closer the catch-share gets to an even split between sport and commercial fisheries. When the runs are smaller, however, the matrix favors the recreational fishery because sport boats are deemed to have lower impacts on wild fish.

The plan sets a top priority of having a 45-day sportfishing season for spring chinook below Bonneville Dam.

The next highest priorities are maintaining harvest levels in off-channel select-area commercial fisheries such as the one in Youngs Bay and providing some spring chinook opportunity on the mainstem for gillnetters.

Bruce Buckmaster, a commercial fishing advocate from Astoria, said the plan might violate laws that require an equitable division of the resource between sport and commercial fisheries.

If the proposed matrix were applied to last year’s fishery, he said it would have given 70 percent of the impacts to the recreational fishery and just 30 percent to commercial gillnetters.

“It was very disappointing from our perspective,” said Hobe Kytr, administrator of the commercial fishing group Salmon for All. “The decision will come at the expense of the core rural economy of the lower river for the benefit of the Portland metro area, if it holds.”

But urban sportfishing industry advocates weren’t happy with the plan either.

Dan Grogan, a board member for the Northwest Sportfishing Industry Association and president of Fishermen’s Marine and Outdoor, said it looks like the matrix will result in sport boats getting fewer fish while having to pay a 20 percent increase in permit fees to the state.

“It’s not good,” he said. “If it is less opportunity, the fish and wildlife department is going to have a hard time getting a 20 percent fee increase from sportsmen. It’s kind of getting old to pay more for less.”

Oregon and Washington fish and wildlife commissions will hear the proposal and take public comments at a joint session Dec. 11. The Oregon board meets Dec. 12 to vote on the issue; Washington is scheduled to vote Dec. 13.