News / Sports / Outdoors

Paid pikeminnow season starts Thursday on the Columbian River in Southwest Washington

Fishers can be paid for catching predators of juvenile salmon – but rules do apply

By Henry Brannan, Columbian Murrow News Fellow

Published: April 25, 2025, 12:02pm

Paul Dunlap, who works for Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, clips fish fins, so they can’t be turned in twice, at The Dalles, Ore., in April. The Northern Pikeminnow Sport-Reward Program opens Thursday at Kalama Marina, Ridgefield Marina and the boat ramp at the Port of Camas-Washougal. (Henry Brannan/The Columbian files)

Anglers can get paid to fish for Northern pikeminnow starting Thursday at sites along the Columbia and Snake rivers, including the Kalama Marina, Ridgefield Marina and the boat ramp at the Port of Camas-Washougal.

The payments — which totaled the better part of $2 million last year — are to encourage fishers to catch the native-but-overpopulated juvenile salmon predator. That money comes from the Northern Pikeminnow Sport-Reward Program, which is funded by Bonneville Power Administration.

BPA sells power produced by the federal Columbia-Snake rivers hydropower system and pays for the Northern pikeminnow program to mitigate the harm to salmon and steelhead cause by dams.

Columbia and Snake River dams generate hundreds of millions of dollars in power each year but slow and warm the rivers, creating conditions that favor the Northern pikeminnow over endangered salmon and steelhead.

Each pikeminnow can eat as many as 20 young salmon per day.

To fight that, the program pays anglers $6 for each of the first 25 fish, $8 each for the next 175 fish and $10 each after that. Some tagged fish can be worth $500.

Last year, one angler made $164,000, although most only earn a fraction of that.

The program has 25 sites for dropping off fish along the Columbia and Snake rivers. That includes a handful of sites along the lower Columbia in Southwest Washington.

All fish must be longer than 9 inches. And anglers must have a fishing license and register in person or on the program’s mobile app ahead of each day they fish.

A full list of regulations, drop sites and helpful how-to tips can be found at www.pikeminnow.org.

Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife spokesman Britton Ransford noted that fishing at those lower Columbia sites often heats up as the season progresses.

While Thursday marks the start of the official season, this year the program opened some select sites earlier, drawing a range of colorful characters in search of their share of the payouts.

The season is set to end Sept. 30, Ransford said.

About the project: The Murrow News Fellowship is a state-funded journalism project managed by Washington State University. Local partners are The Columbian and The Daily News. For more information, visit news-fellowship.murrow.wsu.edu.

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