The Outdoor Line Forum

It was looking like it was going to be a super season for Springer down on the big C, but it seems like it all starting to sag. Anyone have any ideas or thoughts on why? My history of it is limited at best.

BigDave

Hey Dave,
With less than 100 fish over the dam and water temps in the low 40's the last week of March will tell the tale.
I'm planning to fish the last two days of the season. It will be smokin' when they close it down

I have to wonder that with the season structures we have seen on the lower Columbia since springers re-opened in 2001(?) that there isn't a shift in the run timing.

With a significant portion of the harvest directed towards the early portion of the run I would be surprised if there was not some sort of timing shift. I have not taking the time to dig into the available information (looking at portion the run over the dam by some date for example) so it is hard to say with certianity that changes have occured. The up river fishery does take the later fish but don't know if that would balance the fishing rate on the early part of the run (especially in recent years when the lower river fishery has over shot its share).

TJ -
I too will be on the lower river the last part of the season and hopefully fishing will pick up -only time will tell.

Tight lines
Curt

Smalma,

I'm curious -- would you expect to see a run timing shift that quickly due to differential fishing pressure? Wouldn't it take a few more generations to manifest itself?

Brian

Hey Brian,
I hate to be the guy at the party who answers a question not asked of him but I'll take a swing at this and we'll give Smalma the last word.

Since we "re-started" fishing springers in 2001 we've had a minimum of two and possibly four chinook generations (depending on stock) pass through in that time.
Commercial netting pressure and sportfishing occurs in the early part of the run, so it stands to reason that those early running springers are getting the brunt of the fishing effort and therefore have less of a chance to successfully spawn and pass their early-running genes on to their progeny.

There is one other apsect that we must now consider in light of the fact that there are only 130 springers over Bonneville which is less than half of last years count on this date and well below the ten-year average of 1972.9 springers: This run is late and late runs seldom hit their forecast number.

If you're holding out hope for an extension past the scheduled main stem Columbia April 4 closure, you're more optimistic than I am.

TJ -
Thanks for the explanation and I'll try to add a bit.

Brian -
Fish are very genetically are very plastic - that means that they respond quickly to shifting selective pressures. That is what allows them to survive in very dynamic and cyclic survival conditions.

A couple examples - for decades it has been know that one can move the spawning time of domestic rainbows relatively quickly by careful selection of the fish used for replacement brood stock. It is pretty straight forward to move the peak spawning as much as 10 or more days in a single generation.

Another closer to home. During the late 1970s and early 1980s hatchery summer steelhead began colonizing the South Fork Skykomish above Sunset Falls. Those hatchery fish had a January/February spawning timing. As we know the "native" summer steelhead stocks in the North Puget area have an early March through mid-May spawning period. It took only approximately 20 years (4 or 5 fish generations) the spawning timing of those naturalized summer hatchery to the point that it now matches that of the "native" fish. The reason of course is there is severe selection pressure for that later spawning time as that gives the hatchery fry the best shot at survival (coming out of the gravel after the snow melt run-off).

While the fishing pressure on the Columbia spring is not near as severe as that in the two examples above the potential that it may influence the over migration timing is there. While the peak passage may not change much a slight shift in the onset of the big numbers going over the dam could be huge. For example if the date that say 1,000 fish a day begin going over the dam is shift just one week later the impact on the early season fishing (remever we are fishing weeks in front of the peak) could be significant.

Again as I said in the first post I have not taken the time to look closely at this issue which certainly could be done. I was just making the point fishing can change the fish we are fishing on and it is important to consider what those impacts maybe. Not until the development of those non-biting coho on Puget Sound rivers.

Tight lines
Curt

Thanks for both of the replies.

Curt -- I have another question about those S. Fork Sky summers, but I don't want to hijack the thread so I'll start a new one.