Oregon to adopt Columbia River endorsement fee

NEWPORT, Ore. — The Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commision will consider adoption of new Columbia River basin salmon, steelhead and sturgeon endorsement fee when it meets here on Friday.

The panel meets beginning at 8 a.m. at Hallmark Resort, 744 S.E. Elizabeth St.

Commission members will be asked to approve an annual endorsement of up to $9.75, and $1 per day for daily licenses, for anglers fishing for salmon, steelhead and sturgeon in the Columbia River basin.

This would include all rivers and tributaries in the Willamette, Central and Northeast angling zones, and a handful of Columbia River tributaries in the Northwest Zone.

The endorsement is part of a larger package of fishery reforms on the main stem lower Columbia River.

Those reforms include phasing out the use of non-tribal gillnets on the main stem Columbia River. In return for a larger allocation of salmon and steelhead harvest, sportsmen would help finance increased hatchery production in off-channel areas where gillnetting would continue.

The new endorsement would be required beginning Jan. 1, 2014 and would go on sale beginning Dec. 1, 2013.

Washington’s Columbia River salmon and steelhead endorsement fee began April 1, 2010 and costs $8.75.