Spring chinook anglers in the lower Columbia River have caught only 26 percent of their early-season allocation, but state managers said it will be mid-May before they consider a salmon-fishing reopener.
“With the current low passage at Bonneville Dam and potential for very high catch rates, fishery managers are not prepared to consider additional fishing time until we get closer to the run-size update,’’ the Washington and Oregon departments of Fish and Wildlife said in a report issued Monday.
State, tribal and federal biologists are able to better forecast the run in mid-May once substantial numbers of spring chinook have been counted at Bonneville Dam.
The catch of mid- and upper Columbia River spring chinook, plus release mortalities of wild fish, total 1,715 adult fish, which is 26 percent of the 6,487 allowed before a run update.
However, adult chinook passage through Sunday was just 830 fish, compared to a five-year average of 862 and a 10-year average of 3,860. Typically, 2.2 percent of the run is past Bonneville Dam by April 16.
The forecast is for 198,600 spring chinook to enter the Columbia headed for upstream of Bonneville Dam.
The total catch — including fish destined for the Willamette and other waters downstream of Bonneville Dam — is 2,910 chinook from 42,900 angler trips. That’s an average of a salmon per 14.7 trips.
The Columbia has been low, cold and clear. The temperature is 46 degrees, which is 2 degrees colder than the five-year average. The streamflow is about 20,000 cubic feet per second below average and visibility is about a foot more than normal.
Spring chinook fishing is open through May 6 between Bonneville Dam and the Oregon-Washington borders a few miles east of Umatilla, Ore.
That fishery has an allocation of 927 spring chinook and no catch has been observed from about 200 fishing trips.
Commercial fishermen through April 14 have landed 1,168 spring chinook in the off-channel areas such as Youngs Bay at Astoria. Oregon biologists estimate 33 of those chinook are of upper Columbia origin. That is 5 percent of the commercial off-channel allocation.
