Commissioners, biologists discuss fishery issues

Wahkiakum County commissioners and staff of the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife reviewed project progress and harvest issues in a Tuesday meeting.

Biologist Bryce Glaser reported good news and bad news about plans to construct a chum salmon rearing channel at the closed Elochoman Salmon Hatchery.

Regional biologist Pat Frazier and program manager Sara LaBorde reported expansion of the departments alternative gear testing for salmon harvest, and they also discussed harvest and other issues with county Commissioners Lisa Marsyla and Dan Cothren.

Glaser reported that the department has completed tests of ground water for potential sources for the proposed chum salmon rearing channel at the Elochoman Hatchery. The tests revealed no groundwater sources, he said, so the department will look for alternatives or possibly a different site.

The department intends to follow through with the chum channel, Glaser and Frazier said.

Chum salmon spawn in only two places along the Columbia, Grays River and near Washougal. Their preferred spawning grounds are near tidewater and are fed by springs or other sources of clear groundwater. The department wants to extend their range, and commissioners have wanted a program at the Elochoman Hatchery that could continue to involve the vocational agriculture classes at Wahkiakum High School.

Frazier added that department managers are also considering using the hatchery for incubating fall chinook eggs, so the facility is going to get some use.

Frazier and LaBorde said the alternative gear program is expanding this year. The department is increasing the number of test groups, who will be using purse seines, beach seines and traps instead of the Columbia's traditional gillnet.

The department is looking for ways to reduce impacts on wild fish while harvesting hatchery fish. Recreational fishing groups have targeted gillnets, and department staff and fishermen are experimenting with the different methods.

Frazier said that last fall, a small number of test fishers caught 22,000 salmon and had a mortality rate of 0.12 percent.

This year, the department will attempt to study the mortality rate in depth. They'll use a group of fish caught near Bonneville Dam that pass through the dam's fish ladders to set up a control group and develop a statistical basis for verifying the mortality.

Fishermen were interested in participating in the test fishery, and there were more applications than openings for test fishers.

Frazier and LaBorde acknowledged that there were some unhappy fishermen who didn't get to participate. They said they had designed a questionnaire that took into account a fisher's experience on the Columbia River, and it attempted to find out how the fishers would conduct their work. Some experienced fishers didn't fill out the questionnaire very completely, LaBorde said, and that hurt their applications.

She offered to present a workshop on making the applications and also for the 30 or so temporary jobs the department will fill this fall as it monitors fisheries and returns to weirs on lower Columbia rivers.

Commissioners said they could facilitate a community meeting that could involve a presentation about the programs and advice on how to apply to participate or get one of the temporary jobs.

The tests of alternative gear have been very successful so far, Frazier said, and department staff are starting to consider how the department and commercial fishing industry could switch over.

Commissioner Lisa Marsyla, who has been involved in the commercial fishing industry, suggested the department study similar programs that have occurred in Alaska and that they begin meeting with commercial fishermen to hear their ideas and concerns.

Frazier and LaBorde agreed that it is important to meet with the commercial fleet to find a way to make the switch.

"We need to sit down and think about this," LaBorde said. "We need to talk to the fishermen and look at the number of licenses and determine how to do this for the economic advantage of the fishermen."

"We need a viable, successful commercial fishery on the lower Columbia River," Frazier said, "and we're improving the health of the natural fish populations to get there.

"If we can have good conversation with the commercial fishing industry, we can do this."

Commissioner Dan Cothren urged Frazier to use his influence to increase the opening for recreational fishermen on the fall salmon run.

The run starts getting strong at the end of August, and anglers have been showing up in droves. However, the season gets cut off just as it's getting hot so that fishers are taking endangered fall tule chinook.

Frazier said the department had scheduled a longer season for this year, but when US and Canadian fish managers met recently, they noticed that Canadian ocean fishermen are catching a large number of the tules, so they had to cut back the Columbia River season to mitigate for those impacts.

Cothren commented that recreational anglers have very little impact on tules, which don't bite well in fresh water, so they could continue to fish with little impact.

Glaser said the fall catches are closely monitored so that everyone knows what is caught. "The problem is that there's so little impacts left when they get here," he said.