Washington chinook fishery to stay open

LEWISTON – The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife did an about-face Wednesday and announced the limited spring chinook fishing on the Snake River will remain open and be expanded to a new location.

That is in stark contrast to its announcement Tuesday that the fishery would close after sunset Friday.

Now the two-day-a-week season near Little Goose Dam will be open Friday as scheduled and again on Tuesday and Friday. In addition, the Snake River below Ice Harbor Dam near the Tri-Cities will be open Wednesday and Thursday. It will be the first time this year the Ice Harbor fishery will be open.

Chris Donley, fish program manager for the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife at Spokane, said the quick change from a pending closure to four more days of fishing happened because of the lag time it takes to open and close seasons and the real-time performance of the run and harvest by anglers.

“That is kind of the nature of the beast,” he said. “You have to have the fish in hand and have to get all the bureaucracy together to make a decision on who gets what but my fisheries are moving in real time not at the speed of government.”

The season was slated for closure because fisheries managers forecast anglers would have reached the 400-fish harvest quotas by Friday evening. Shortly after the decision was made, the run forecast was updated. On top of that, negotiations between Oregon and Washington put another 150 fish on the table for Snake River anglers. It all adds up to a new harvest quota of 957 fish.

Donley expects anglers to hit the new quota by the end of the fourth day of fishing.

“It went from what was going to be a pretty mediocre season to what could be a pretty good year,” he said.