Field reports: Nez Perce nets stir clearwater anglers
FISHING – A gillnet fishing season for Nez Perce Tribe members has been catching Snake-Clearwater steelhead and salmon anglers by surprise – mostly because some nets are not marked with lights at night.
Since 2006, tribal gillnet fishing has expanded on the Clearwater River above Lewiston or the Snake River west of Clarkston.
This is the first year nets have been deployed in the confluence of the two rivers, a popular sportfishing hot spot where anglers are allowed to fish 24 hours a day.
“The tribe doesn’t require its fishermen to use lights on their nets,” said Silas Whitman, the tribe’s executive committee chairman.
However, a U.S. Coast Guard spokeswoman in Seattle told the Lewiston Tribune that gill nets must be lighted at night.
Whitman said Friday that he recognizes the congestion near Lewiston. He said the tribe would “make some lights available to those net fishers in the confluence that wish to use them to help non-tribal fishermen avoid the nets and thereby protect the net gear.”
The tribe has played a leading role in restoration of fall chinook to the Snake River and its tributaries upstream of Lower Granite Dam and is helping bring coho back to the basin, Whitman said. It is also restoring steelhead habitat and helping manage Dworshak National Fish Hatchery, which produces many of the steelhead that return to the Clearwater.
More than 83,000 steelhead, 51,500 adult fall chinook and 6,200 coho have passed Lower Granite.
“State-licensed fishermen are accustomed to sharing the river with our tribal fishers on the Columbia, and it seems that we will probably have to go through a period in which fishers will become accustomed to sharing the river up here as well.”
The tribe opened its commercial fishing season on the Snake and Clearwater rivers Sept. 2. The season for fall chinook and coho will run through Nov. 15 and steelhead will be open through Dec. 31.
Snowmobiling safety taught
WINTER – A free snowmobile safety course for youths ages 12-16 is set for Nov. 8 at the Spokane Winter Knights Snow Show at the Spokane County Fair & Expo Center. Register by Friday at www.parks.wa.gov/130/ Winter-Recreation.
Info: (360) 902-8664.
Photo I.D. wrong
ERRATA – The lead photo on last Sunday’s Outdoors cover shows a Sherpa climber named Sungdare, who accompanied Spokane climber Chris Kopczynski in 1981 during the latter’s first ascent of Mount Everest. Because of incorrect information provided to the newspaper, the caption was incorrect. Also, the correct length of the movie about Kopczynski, “Wisdom Earned,” is 1 hour, 48 minutes. It will be shown Wednesday at The Bing.