Wednesday, November 19 | 3:54 p.m.
BY ALLEN THOMAS
COLUMBIAN STAFF WRITER
This much is clear: Both sport and commercial fishermen are unhappy with a proposed spring chinook catch-sharing recommendation for the lower Columbia River.
On Monday, the Columbia River Fish Working Group agreed on an approximately five-year scenario for dividing the harvest between the groups.
"We knew we weren't going to please,'' said Jerry Gutzwiler of Wenatchee, chairman of the Washington Fish and Wildlife Commission and a working group member. "We've got a finite resource and a big appetite for it.''
The working group included three commission members from each state. The six have been meeting monthly since September to develop a recommendation to their full commissions.
Arguably, their proposal is a small victory for sport-fishing interests, one that chips away at the commercial share under most circumstances.
The working group agreed on these four principles, in this order:
• The highest priority is a 45-day sport fishery in March and April.
• Next priority is protecting the off-channel commercial fishery in places like Youngs Bay and Blind Slough in Oregon and Deep River in Washington. Only a small number of endangered wild spring chinook stray into and are caught these spots.
• Allowing at least a little gillnetting in March or April in the lower Columbia is desirable if the run is large enough.
• The split among sports fishing is 75 percent downstream of Bonneville Dam and 25 percent upstream.
The four principles also are paired with an allocation matrix which factors in the strength of the upper Columbia and Willamette spring chinook runs when determining percentages. The sport share can range from 55 percent to 75 percent, depending on the forecasts for the two watersheds.
The base allocation is 65 percent sport-35 percent commercial. Sport allocation in 2007 was targeted to be 57 percent, and 61 percent in 2008.
Complicating the agreement is a 35 percent buffer early in the season.
State, federal and tribal biologists predict the spring chinook run each December, but the forecast is often off as much as 20 percent to 60 percent, with 35 percent the average, said Steve Williams of the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife.
The sport and commercial combined fisheries would be permitted harvest to no more 65 percent of the projected allowable catch, leaving the buffer until the spring chinook run can be updated by Bonneville Dam counts in late April or early May.
The buffer is to prevent exceeding federal Endangered Species Act limits on wild chinook harvest and catch-sharing agreements with the Columbia River treaty tribes.
But many details of the plan remain to be determined.
For example, the 45 days of sport fishing might be all of March and the first 14 days of April, or could be all of March plus Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays in April, said Guy Norman, regional director of the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife.
How the remaining fish are shared after the late April-early May update also could vary.
Jack Glass, a Troutdale, Ore., fishing guide, said the proposal is similar enough to the status quo that it will be a difficult sell to sportsmen.
The shift in allocation is somewhat negated by the larger buffer, likely resulting in continued mid-April sport closures.
But the reaction of commercial fishermen is much stronger.
Robert Sudar of Longview, a fish marketer, called the proposal "a total sellout of our industry. I'm disappointed, but not surprised. It's a pitiful distribution of the resource.''
Jim Wells, president of Salmon For All, a commercial fishing group, said the netters catch in the lower Columbia, excluding the off-channel areas, could be as low as 3,000 spring chinook.
"We just don't see the fairness of this,'' Wells said. "People in the lower river are not amused.''
In nine years, the commercial share has gone from 50 percent to 35 percent or less, Wells added.
Commercial fisherman Brian Tarabochia said the recommendation is yet another example of the metropolitan area taking jobs away from rural areas.
The full Washington and Oregon commissions will meet Dec. 11 in Portland to receive the working group's recommendations and accept public comment. The Washington commission is scheduled to adopt a spring chinook allocation policy on Dec. 13 when the panel meets in Olympia.
Dan Edge, an Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission member from Corvallis, said he sees this proposal as about a five-year plan. In that time, the off-channel areas will be boosted with enough spring chinook to yield a 12,000 commercial catch.
Once that occurs, the plan would be to shift more of the main lower Columbia catch to the sport fleet, Edge added.
Spring chinook allocations are among the most bitter contentious issues in Northwest fish management. The fish will earn the commercials $10 a pound early in the season and fuel a huge sport fishery with accompanying tackle, bait and boat sales, plus guided trips.
Gutzwiler said this is the third time in four years the commissions have had to wrestle with Columbia spring chinook allocation. Every time, there are new twists and challenges, he added.
"This is where we are today and we're going to move forward,'' Gutzwiler said.
