600 nets were in the water this week: Steelheader.net- Steelhead, Salmon and trout fishing

Fall Chinook Return: Either An Early Run Or More Fish Than Forecasted
Posted on Friday, September 05, 2008 (PST)
Fishery officials aren't quite ready to jack up their estimates of the size of this year's fall chinook salmon run to the Columbia River basin.

But they are close.

With chinook daily counts at the lower Columbia's Bonneville Dam ranging between 13,000 and more than 15,000 over the past six days (through Thursday), the total fall chinook count has reached 162,374 adult fish.

"Those counts are above the 10-year average counts" for late August-early September, according to Stuart Ellis, Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission fishery biologist and vice chair of the Technical Advisory Committee. TAC's fishery federal, state and tribal experts calculate preseason run forecasts for the basin's returning salmon and steelhead, and update those forecasts as the fish stream in.

That's a sign of either "an extremely early run or a run that is larger than forecast," Ellis said.

Ellis told the Columbia River Compact Thursday that it is too early to make a precise prediction of this year's upriver/Mid-Columbia bright fall chinook and Bonneville Pool Hatchery fall chinook tule returns. On average, the midpoint of each run's passage at Bonneville occurs within the next week. TAC intends to meet again today and on Monday to potentially update the forecasts.

The Bonneville tally through midweek includes 87,231 URBs and Mid-Columbia brights, which already represents more than half of the 170,000 preseason forecast adult return to the mouth of the river. The Bonneville estimates includes fish caught in lower river sport fisheries.

URBs, and Mid-Columbia brights for the most part, are fall chinook bound for hatcheries and tributaries above Bonneville. The URBs include Snake River fall chinook which are listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. The BPH tules are unlisted fish that are mostly bound for Spring Creek National Fish Hatchery.

"TAC believes the Spring Creek tule run (BPH stock) is larger than forecast…," according to Thursday's Joint Staff report by the Oregon and Washington departments of fish and wildlife.

The BPH preseason forecast is for a BPH return of 86,200 adults to the mouth of the river, which would be a vast improvement over last year's 14,600-fish return. But already the Bonneville tally through Wednesday was 60,220.

Summer steelhead passage is also tracking ahead of average, Ellis said.

The Compact on Thursday approved a tribal commercial fishery in Columbia mainstem reservoirs above Bonneville for next week. The fishery runs from 6 a.m. Tuesday through 6 p.m. Friday. Chinook, coho, sockeye, steelhead, walleye, carp and shad may be sold or retained for subsistence use.

The tribal gill-netters have fished in each of the past three weeks. They estimate the catch so far to be 52,700 chinook and 3,300 steelhead. That chinook total includes a projected catch of 32,000 for the fishery than ends this evening.

Ellis told the Compact that a like catch -- 32,000 -- is anticipated next week. The Compact sets mainstem non-tribal and Indian commercial fisheries. The two-person panel is made up of representatives of the ODFW and WDFW directors.

Four Columbia River treaty tribes -- the Nez Perce, Umatilla, Warm Springs and Yakama -- are entitled this year to the harvest of up to 23 percent of the URB run and 15 percent of the steelhead run. Caps are imposed on fisheries to limit impacts on listed fish.

CRITC projects that the catch through next week's fishery would bring its URB impacts to 21.8 percent based on the preseason forecast return. The projected season's URB catch through next week is more than 36,000. If the run forecast is increased, it means tribal and non-Indian fishers can catch more salmon.

Fishing has been good, with more URBs being caught higher than at any of the past nine years, Ellis said. During the first week of fishing 297 tribal nets were counted on the mainstem and last week 465 were deployed. An estimated 600 nets were in the water this week.

"Maybe there's more bright fish out there than we thought," Ellis said of the preseason forecast.

"Overall the steelhead catches have been quite moderate," he said.

The tribes can catch up to 15 percent of the listed "B-index" steelhead bound for Idaho. Through this week the tribes project that the harvest rate will be 7.4 percent.

The Columbia Basin Bulletin, 19464 Summerwalk Place, Bend, OR, 97702, (541)312-8860 fax: (541)388-0126 e-mail: info@cbbulletin.com
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