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States delay commercial spring chinook fishing in lower Columbia

The Columbian
Published: March 23, 2015, 12:00am

State officials announced Monday there will be no commercial fishing on Tuesday in the lower Columbia River after test netting caught too high a ratio of winter steelhead.

Sixteen test drifts on Sunday in the Wahkiakum and Cowlitz county stretches of the Columbia caught 14 spring chinook and 25 steelhead.

Eighty-six percent of the spring chinook were fin-clipped and 64 percent were headed for waters upstream of Bonneville Dam.

Only 44 percent of the steelhead were fin-clipped.

The test fishermen used 4.25-inch-mesh tangle nets.

The lower Columbia is closed to sport fishing on Tuesday to prevent conflict with the commercial fleet. Angling will remain closed, despite the lack of a commercial fishery.

Test fishing will resume next Sunday. Angling will be closed on March 31 in case a commercial season is adopted by the Columbia River Compact.

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