Disturbingly, Good Numbers May Deceive

FROM SPORTS, C6 (Friday, June 2, 2000): CORRECTION Free fishing days No license will be required for general fishing on June 10 in Idaho and June 10-11 in Washington. The dates for these “free fishing days” were wrong in Rich Landers’ Thursday column.

Spring chinooks are no accident.

The man-made versions of these prized salmon are returning in big numbers to hatcheries on some Columbia and Snake river tributaries this week. But their spring-running lifestyle evolved long before humans were on the scene.

Spring chinooks are in firm, bright condition as they move upstream because they are nowhere near their spawning mode.

Spring chinooks originally took hold in certain river systems because the season of high flows was the only period in which they could reliably get above some natural barrier, such as falls or high water temperatures.

Fall chinooks move upstream from the ocean in late summer and fall and proceed directly to spawning grounds. Spring chinooks enter the rivers in May. They have more precise water and habitat requirements than fall chinooks, since the springers must remain in the rivers and tributaries until they are ready to spawn in August and September.

These two versions of the same species take advantage of the river systems at different times of the year.

Fall and spring chinook are the original models for a good investment portfolio. They demonstrate nature’s amazing penchant for diversification to prevent a total loss of fisheries from any single natural disaster.

This plan has provided a trust to sustain countless generations of man and beast over the millennia.

No less than 137 wildlife species in Washington and Oregon - from killer whales to giant salamanders - depend one way or another on Pacific salmon for part of their diet, according to a recently released report by a consortium of state agencies.

Yet this investment strategy, remarkable as it has been, is having trouble coping with the year-round unnatural disaster created by man.

Giant mutated beavers would require millions of years to wreak the havoc the Corps of Engineers inflicted on the Columbia River system in just a few decades.

Short-term success: Fishing has been excellent for hatchery-raised spring chinook salmon heading for a few hatcheries in Columbia and Snake River tributaries.

Next year, the fishing could be phenomenal.

Preliminary indicators suggest hatchery runs entering the Columbia River could be nearly twice as big next spring.

The number of adult chinook salmon passing over Bonneville Dam as of today is almost identical to the 1972 tally of 178,000. But there’s a big difference, fish managers point out.

In 1972, significant commercial and sport fisheries were conducted on those salmon BEFORE they reached the dam. This year, no commercial fisheries were allowed, and sport fishing was restricted.

A combination of factors, including exceptionally high spring stream flows two and three years ago and improving ocean conditions, have help boost the returns of hatchery salmon.

Wild stocks are still weak, however.

And no one knows whether the next drought will bring on a collapse.

Get rod ready: Fishing for spring chinooks has been slow in the Icicle River near Leavenworth, but that could change any day, or any minute for that matter.

Judging from fish counts at upper Columbia dams, nearly 7,000 salmon are poised in the Columbia and Wenatchee rivers. They appear to be waiting for the right water temperatures to signal their charge in to the Icicle.

Anglers who can be there at the right moment will have the time of their lives.

Free fishing: No one in this region has to travel to the Columbia River for good fishing. Stream conditions are getting better every week, and the kokanee are hitting on the big waters of Lake Coeur d’Alene, Lake Koocanusa and Dworshak Reservoir.

This weekend is a great time to sample new waters. No license is required on Saturday to fish game-fish other than salmon and steelhead in Idaho. Washington doubles the pleasure of the annual free fishing days by extending the offer to Sunday as well.

All other regulations apply.

Streams unstocked: The Touchet River from Dayton to Lewis and Clark State Park has been stocked with 2,000 small rainbows to spice the action for Washington’s general stream trout fishing season, which opens today.

The Touchet is the exception. Because of concerns for endangered salmon and steelhead, the stocking of hatchery trout in streams has been all but abandoned.

For the first time in years, no trout were stocked in other southeastern Washington streams including The Tucannon River, Mill Creek, Asotin Creek and Pataha Creek.

Idaho has curtailed stream stocking in many areas, too, although fish managers are experimenting with stocking sterile trout in some streams.

Better than salmon: After checking out the spring chinook fishing on Washington’s Wind River Monday, I stopped into the Home Valley Market, where a local angler asked me what I had seen upstream.

“They’re knocking them dead,” I said.

“Figures,” he said. “I couldn’t get up there today, so the fishing is good.”

But he said he didn’t care too much, because he had a more lucrative alternative.

“I guess I could drive upstream and catch a salmon; it’s only 20 miles or so from my house,” he said. “But I’m going down to the Columbia and fish for money, er squawfish, er, ah, pikeminnows,” he said.

The man said he had earned hundreds of dollars in the Bonneville Power Administrations program that pays up to $5 for each northern pikeminnow an angler catches from portions of the Snake and Columbia rivers.

Info: (800) 858-9015.

You can contact Rich Landers by voice mail at 459-5577, extension 5508.