Buoy 10 salmon season to get a new look

Washington and Oregon on Thursday announced a new look for the popular Buoy 10 late-summer salmon season at the mouth of the Columbia River: Only adipose fin-clipped hatchery chinook will be allowed to be kept on Sundays and Mondays.

The goal is to keep the season from closing prior to Labor Day, which is Sept. 5 this year.

The daily bag limit at Buoy 10 will be two salmon, but only one chinook.

From Sept. 6 through Sept. 30, Buoy 10 anglers will have a daily limit of two hatchery coho, but must release all chinook. Beginning Oct. 1, the daily limit will be two adult salmon, any chinook or hatchery coho.

In past years, chinook retention at Buoy 10 has been open daily beginning Aug. 1. Often in late August, chinook retention switched to a few days of hatchery-only fish before a closure extending through Sept. 30.

Although a huge run of 951,000 fall chinook is forecast to enter the Columbia in August, September and October, Washington and Oregon must manage the fisheries so as not to exceed predetermined harvest levels of wild chinook headed for certain lower Columbia tributaries and wild chinook headed for the Snake River, said Ron Roler, Columbia River policy coordinator for the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife.

Those are both relatively weak stocks mixed in with other very healthy fall chinook populations, he said.

Angling will be open from the Rocky Point-Tongue Point line east of Astoria to the mouth of the Lewis River from beginning Aug. 1. The limit will be two salmon, but only one chinook through Sept. 14.

From Sept. 10 through 14, only hatchery-origin chinook can be retained. Chinook retention then closes until Oct. 1.

Catch savings from reductions in ocean salmon seasons this year have allowed the states to add two days to the any-chinook period and lessen the hatchery-chinook-only period by two days, Roler said.

Anglers between the mouth of the Lewis River and the Highway 395 Bridge in Pasco can keep fall chinook and hatchery coho, with a two-salmon daily limit, beginning Aug. 1.

Anglers fishing from the same boat may continue fishing for salmon until all have reached their daily limits.

Summer season from the Astoria Bridge to Bonneville Dam will be open June 16 though July 31 for hatchery summer chinook, hatchery steelhead and any sockeye.

The limit will be two adult fish. Sockeye count as part of the daily limit.