The season will be Aug. 1 through Labor Day (Sept. 4) with a daily limit of two salmon, only one of which can be a chinook. The daily limit at Buoy 10 from Sept. 5 through 30 will be two hatchery coho, but all chinook must be released.
From Oct. 1 through Dec. 31, the Buoy 10 rules will allow keeping two adult salmon per day, but coho must be fin-clipped.
Projected catches at Buoy 10 this year are 22,100 chinook and 15,000 coho.
Here is a look at other highlights of the 2017 regulation package:
• Tongue-Point to Lewis River mouth — Open Aug. 1 though Dec. 31. Anglers may retain one adult chinook as part of their two-fish daily limit Aug. 1 through Sept. 14. During Sept. 8 through 14, the adult chinook can only be a hatchery fish. Chinook retention will be closed Sept. 15-30. Beginning Oct. 1, the limit is two adult chinook daily.
• Lewis River to Highway 395 at Pasco — Open Aug. 1 through Dec. 31 for chinook and hatchery coho with a daily limit of two salmon.
• Summer chinook season will be June 16 through July 31 from the Astoria Bridge upstream to Highway 395 for hatchery chinook, hatchery steelhead and any sockeye. Sockeye are part of the two adult salmon-steelhead limit.
Summer steelhead — Regulations for summer steelhead in the lower Columbia River were not announced, but significant restrictions are anticipated. Partial closures at cool-water spots in the Columbia like the mouth of the Cowlitz River and Drano Lake are considered likely.
State biologists are forecasting a return of just 130,700 steelhead to waters upstream of Bonneville Dam, down from 182,737 in 2016 and 261,400 in 2015. Returns were 601,000 as recently as 2009.
In worst shape are the Group B steelhead headed for Idaho. Group B are larger, later-returning steelhead headed for Idaho’s Clearwater River, a major tributary of the Snake River.
Forecasts are for 6,200 hatchery-origin Group B steelhead and a mere 1,100 wild Group B steelhead.
Hatcheries in the Clearwater basin need 2,000 adult steelhead for spawning.
The federal Endangered Species Act limits non-Indian harvest of wild Group A and wild Group B steelhead to 2 percent incidental catch in the process of catching fish from healthy stocks.
That means only 22 wild Group B steelhead can be killed in the plethora of sport fisheries between the Columbia River mouth and Idaho, plus in commercial gillnet fisheries between Woodland and Beacon Rock in the fall.
Ron Roler, Columbia River policy coordinator for the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, said reductions in the commercial fishery in the fall are anticipated to save wild Group B steelhead, but the model still has a 3 percent incidental catch.
“We will still need to work on structuring the recreational steelhead fishery to save these fish and get down to 2 percent,’’ Roler said in an email.
Ocean salmon — Sport fishing off Washington and northern Oregon will be open daily. The season will begin June 24 between Cape Falcon, Oregon (near Manzanita) and Leadbetter Point at the northern tip of Long Beach Peninsula.
Fishing will close once coho quotas are filled or Sept. 4 whichever comes first. The coho quota for the Columbia River ports is 21,000.
Anglers out of the Columbia River ports and Westport will be allowed to retain two salmon, but only one chinook.
This year, Westport, La Push and Neah Bay will have coho retention seasons, not the case in 2016.
