Oregon’s Snake River to Open for Spring Chinook
OutdoorHub 05.01.13
ODFW and Idaho Fish and Game fishery managers, who co-manage Snake River sport fisheries, delayed opening the season this year because fish counts at mainstem Columbia River dams are smaller than expected.
“We are anticipating a much smaller harvest quota this year” said Jeff Yanke, ODFW district fish biologist in Enterprise. “Anglers should be prepared for sudden changes, including a closure.”
Season changes and closures announcements will be posted on the ODFW website and released through local news outlets.
In local tributaries, Oregon fishery managers plan to open the Imnaha River, but not the Wallowa, for chinook salmon this year. Managers are expecting an especially low return to the Wallowa River this year, with not enough hatchery fish to sustain a fishery, Yanke said.
“Our forecasts indicate an adequate return to the Imnaha, but the decision to open the fishery entirely depends on what we see crossing the lower Columbia dams”, Yanke said. Fishery managers track salmon returns using PIT-tags that are implanted in juvenile salmon before they migrate to the ocean.
Chinook salmon that return to the Imnaha River typically migrate much later than other salmon stocks in northeast Oregon, and Yanke predicts it will be another month before fisheries are decided.
“We will be tracking the returns very carefully,” he said. “Whenever we can responsibly offer these great fishing opportunities, we want to do so.”
