Springer Season is set!!!!

[Ray G]

Here we go!!!

Time to start planning, Costa Rica one weekend and the Columbia the next! I am going to be one tired cookie after that two week stretch.

This just in from Northwest Sportsman Magazine:

We’ll be able to fish for springers a little higher up the Columbia from a boat this year and bankies again get their water below Bonneville, but Chinook season will only run into April’s earliest days.

That’s what two Oregon and Washington fishery managers decided during a meeting today in Oregon City.

After hearing testimony from sport, commercial and tribal anglers, ODFW and WDFW managers chose option one of two presented to them.

Their decision opens the river from Buoy 10 upstream to Rooster Rock for boat and bank anglers, and the water from Rooster Rock up to Bonneville Dam for bank anglers seven days a week from March 1 through April 4.

The limit is again one adipose-fin-clipped Chinook.

Option 2 would have restricted all anglers to the water from B10 up to I-5 only, though given us two more days on the water, more angler trips and about 1,000 more fish.

he upstream boat fishery boundary will be definied as “a true north/south line projected from Rooster Rock on the Oregon shore to the Washington shoreline.”

Rooster Rock is basically the mouth of the gorge, and is just below Crown Point.

It’s 16 miles above last year’s upstream boat fishery boundary, the I-205 bridge. Bank anglers, however, were allowed to fish from the bridge to the dam.

While the forecast is for 198,000 above-Bonneville-bound springers, until a run-size update in midspring, managers are running nontreaty seasons as if 30 percent fewer (or 139,000) fish actually show up. That provides sports and comms a total of 11,527 Chinook to harvest. That breaks down thusly:

a. 7,750 fish for the recreational fishery below Bonneville Dam

b. 1,050 fish for the recreational fishery from Bonneville Dam to the OR/WA state line

c. 600 fish for recreational fisheries in the Snake River

d. 1,900 fish for the mainstem commercial fishery

e. 200 fish for Select Area commercial fisheries

The overall sport catch below Bonneville, including upriver, Willamette, Cowlitz and other stocks, is expected to be 10,100 under option 1, according to a fact sheet sent out yesterday afternoon. Option 2 would have provided 11,000.

The Columbia below I-5 is open through March 31 under permanent regulations.

Official press releases are expected soon.

[Salmonhawk]

I really think that me and my two boys need to fish with big Ray for springers this year Thanks for posting that info. I know quite a few guys are fired up to have seasons set and Nelly is probably on his way down already.

[Nelly]

Hey Ray! The fact that Tobeck beat me in responding to your post is just further proof that the Crimson Crusader is a closet chinookaholic!!!

Tuna Tyrant indeed!!!