Anglers in the Columbia Gorge reservoirs will get seven additional days to fish for a lagging spring chinook salmon run.
Washington and Oregon officials on Wednesday added April 25 through May 1 to the fishing season for the Columbia between Bonneville Dam and the state line upstream of McNary Dam.
Fishing for salmon was scheduled to close beginning Monday.
John North of the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife said only 1,803 spring chinook have been counted at Bonneville Dam through Tuesday. The 10-year average through April 19 is 48,532.
Sportsmen in the mid-Columbia pools have killed an estimates 41 salmon out of an initial allocation of 1,032.
“Catch and effort have been minimal, reflective of the low Bonneville Dam counts,” North said.
State biologists estimate about 50 chinook per day will get caught in the pools.
The decision to extend the Columbia Gorge fishery came over the objections of the Columbia River treaty tribes and Idaho Department of Fish and Game.
Leslie Bill of the Warm Springs tribe said tribal biologists fear the upper Columbia spring chinook run will be less than 100,000 salmon. The forecast is for 198,500.
Bruce Jim, also a Warm Springs member, said the run will have to be the latest-timed ever to reach 198,000.
Pete Hassemer of the Idaho Department of Fish and Game said delaying an extension of the mid-Columbia sport fishery for a couple of weeks to get a better idea of the run’s strength is a good idea.
The Columbia is colder, higher and dirtier than normal for April.
Guy Norman, regional director of the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, said those three environmental factors could be slowing passage at Bonneville Dam.
Norman said he’d be more worried if the counts were on the low side of normal for the date.
“When we have the kind of counts of 100 to 200 per day this time of year it indicates to me the run is stagnant and (the count) is not a reliable indicator,” he said.
Steve Williams, an assistant administrator for the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, said an improvement in the sport catch during the final few days of the lower Columbia season was encouraging.
“I do believe we have some fish in the river, they’re just not transitioning the dam at this time for whatever reason,” Williams said.
Les Clark of Chinook, Wash., a long-time gillnetter, agreed.
“Looking at the river, I think we’ve got fish,” Clark said. “But it’s definitely going to be late.”
Williams said by May 1 the states should know if the spring salmon run is below forecast or late.
Streamflows are starting to drop, the river is clearing and the water is warming, he said.
“We should start to see some fish moving fairly quick,” Williams said.
Lower Columbia — Anglers in the fishery downstream of Bonneville Dam caught an estimated 7,440 spring chinook, with 5,849 being upper Columbia origin. That’s almost 76 percent of the initial allocation of 7,743 upper Columbia salmon.
Fishing in the lower Columbia is closed.
