More Bad News For Salmon Anglers? Forecasts For Wild Coho And Chinook Salmon Runs In 1995 Appear To Be At Least As Poor As 1994

Anglers wondering whether this year’s salmon seasons will be any better than last year’s disaster shouldn’t get their hopes up.

Department of Fish and Wildlife officials are indicating that forecasts for 1995 wild coho and chinook runs - to be issued officially next month - probably will be as bad as 1994’s.

Last year, forecasts for record-low wild coho returns forced the most sweeping fishing closures in state history. Sportfishing for salmon was closed entirely in ocean waters, from May through October in the Strait of Juan de Fuca and July into October in north Puget Sound - about 90 percent of Washington’s best salmon fishing waters.

“I’m not sure how many ways you can spell the word bad,” said agency spokesman Tony Floor when asked about prospects for this year’s seasons. “But it appears it is at least as bad as 1994.”

Preliminary indications are that while the 1995 forecast for wild coho might show some improvement over 1994, the forecasts for wild chinook will be down for the third year in a row.

“Expectations are that all natural (chinook) runs returning to Puget Sound streams will be below desired spawning levels,” Dennis Austin, an assistant Fish and Wildlife director, told a recent meeting of the agency’s sportfishing advisory group.

Puget Sound wild coho returning this year will be the progeny of 1992’s adults, which reached the spawning grounds in dismal numbers. They also encountered low stream flows and thus poor rearing conditions as juveniles in the summer of 1993. But Austin said improved survival in the ocean, because of more abundant forage, could result in a larger coho return this year than last.

“Whether or not it is enough better to have any meaningful impact on our fisheries, I can’t say,” he added.

Floor did say that a review of 1994’s season indicated “it appears the fisheries we did enjoy and were prosperous in 1994, in the south Sound and the bubble areas (small near-shore areas in otherwise closed waters), have merit for recurring in 1995.”

Release of the official fish run forecasts will trigger a several-week process by which the Fish and Wildlife Department, anglers, tribal representatives, commercial fishermen and federal officials establish 1995 salmon fishing seasons.

Fish and Wildlife Department biologists will brief fishing group leaders on the forecasts at a meeting Feb. 28, 10 a.m. in the state General Administration Building’s auditorium. The Pacific Fisheries Management Council will set West Coast ocean seasons at its April 3-7 meeting in Portland. Seasons for Washington’s inland marine waters - the Strait, Hood Canal, San Juans and Puget Sound - will probably also be announced then.