WDFW directors, netters discuss allocations

Unsworthy and Norman said the Oregon and Washington departments continue to study fisheries under the Kitzhaber Plan with an eye on evaluating it at the end of the year.

The plan, named after former Oregon Governor John Kitzhaber, basically allocates the majority of salmon harvest in the Columbia to anglers, shifts commercial gillnetters into side channels, and encourages development of alternative commercial gear.

Chinook runs on the Columbia should be above average and offer lots of opportunity for all fishers this year, Norman said. However, indicators show a probably poor run of coho, so that late summer/fall fishery will be reduced, he said.

Skamokawa gillnetter Kent Martin commented that Puget Sound fishers will have limited opportunities because of predicted low returns in northern rivers, and they may complain and question the rationale for fishing on the Columbia. The department should be proactive in explaining what's going on, he said.

Fishery managers are closely studying the results of experimental seining fisheries, Norman said.

Seining was banned on the Columbia in the 1930's, but the practice has been resurrected in an attempt to find techniques which will reduce the accidental mortality of endangered salmon stocks mixed in with healthy stocks.

"We're having pretty high mortality for chinook and coho," Norman said. "There's some controversy in interpreting the results. It's possible there will be another mortality study in the fall."

The fishery managers expected a 5 percent mortality of fish released from seining, Norman said. Instead, the 2015 study showed a 20 percent mortality for salmon released from purse seines and 30 percent for salmon released from beach seines.

Other studies have shown mortality rates of 14 percent for salmon released from tangle gillnets and 10 percent for fish caught on anglers' hooks and then released.

The department hopes to expand the off channel fishing area by developing the Cathlamet channel into an off channel area. The department has been releasing chinook fry in the channel, and the first adults are expected to return this year as four-year-olds, Norman said.

The department will conduct test fisheries to see how many fish from endangered stocks might be present. Managers hope the main run will follow the main channel along the Oregon shoreline and leave the Cathlamet channel open to gillnetting.

Gillnetters expressed unhappiness with aspects of the fishery management.

Art Pedersen questioned the value of restricting fishing for plentiful upriver brights to avoid catch of tules, the variety of chinook that span in lower river tributaries. Tules arrive in the river ready to spawn and are of poor quality for food consumption.

Norman pointed out that the tule is classified as a federally protected endangered stock, and so the department has to manage fisheries in a manner that doesn't impact endangered species.

In the same way, the population of sea lions has recovered because of the federal Marine Mammals Protection Act and they now prey heavily on salmon. A recent survey showed there were 4,600 sea lions in the Columbia. In 2008, there were only 107.

"Doesn't that make other things irrelevant when you can't control sea lions," a gillnetter asked.

"That's our main point when we talk to members of Congress," Norman replied.

Another gillnetter, Bill Olsen, said that when the fishery managers focus gillnetting above the Lewis River mouth.

"When you put us up river, I make nothing up there," he said. "We just burn gas."

Norman pointed out that the openings were located up river to avoid catch of the endangered tules from the downstream Coweeman, Kalama and river in Oregon.

Norman said the two states will evaluate the success of management changes resulting from the Kitzhaber Plan.

While the plan was supposed to end strife over allocations, it also has provisions stating the commercial fisher must remain economically viable.

"Nothing is a done deal till we evaluate the last four years," he said. "The commercial fishery mustn't lose ground."