Fish pikeminnow for cash

Sun., May 7, 2006

From Staff Reports The Spokesman-Review

It’s time to fish for fame, and especially for fortune.

The 2006 Pikeminnow Reward Season opened May 1 on the Columbia River from John Day Dam to the mouth, while the program starts upstream from John Day and up the Snake River to Lewiston starting May 15.

During the season, which is scheduled to end Oct. 1, anglers who register each day they go fishing can earn from $4 up to $8 a fish for pikeminnows longer than 9 inches that are caught and turned in to reward stations.

The Bonneville Power Administration funds the reward program to reduce the number of the native predators, which have been given an unnatural advantage for eating endangered salmon and steelhead smolts as they try to migrate downstream through the reservoirs created by dams on the Snake and Columbia Rivers.

The bounty program has removed about 2.7 million pikeminnows since 1990. BPA officials say the program has cut juvenile salmon losses to prey by 25 percent.

More than 5,000 anglers took part in last year’s fishery, catching a total of 240,955 pikeminnows and earning a total of $1.5 million.

The top money-earner, who collected $39,620 for the season, caught 4,740 pikeminnows – including six tagged fish that earned up to $500 apiece. Average participants catch six to seven fish per day, officials said, but as with salmon or steelhead anglers, the top 5 percent catches 80 percent of the fish.

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Fish pikeminnow for cash

Jesse Tinsley

Jim Meehan

Molly Quinn

Rob Curley

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