http://www.columbian.com/02062005/sports/240638.cfm

Officials bend on steelhead kill rate

Sunday, February 6, 2005
By ALLEN THOMAS, Columbian staff writer

OLYMPIA - The Washington Fish and Wildlife Commission agreed Saturday to allow up to a doubling of the incidental kill of wild winter steelhead in the Columbia River in 2005 if the change is needed to help the commercial fleet catch its allocation of highly prized spring chinook.

The panel voted 8-1 to increase the ceiling on the inadvertent wild steelhead take from 2 percent of the run to 4 percent for this spring only. The more telling vote was 6-3 against keeping the lid at 2 percent.

Next Friday, the battle over the controversial proposal moves to Troutdale, where Oregon's Fish and Wildlife Commission will consider the issue.

Steelhead are caught inadvertently in the commercial net fishery for spring salmon in February and March in the lower Columbia between the mouth of the Willamette River at Kelley Point and the ocean.

A strong run of 413,000 spring chinook is forecast to enter the Columbia, along with 27,000 wild winter steelhead. Commercial fishermen can not sell or retain steelhead.

Excellent table fare, spring chinook earn commercial fishermen $6 a pound or more, compared to 50 cents to $1 a pound for fall salmon.

A five-year agreement signed in 2001 between state, federal and tribal fishery agencies stipulated up to 2 percent of the wild winter steelhead could be killed as an incidental catch in order to harvest chinook.

Wild winter steelhead in the upper Willamette, lower Columbia and mid-Columbia areas are protected under the federal Endangered Species Act.

The 2 percent limit was selected in 1998, when wild steelhead first were listed under the Endangered Species Act. At that time, the commercial fleet used large-mesh nets, which passed steelhead easily.

With the rejuvenation of the upper Columbia-Snake spring chinook run in 2001 came an opportunity for much larger sport and commercial fisheries.

The commercial season targets hatchery-origin spring chinook headed for the Willamette River and, to a much lesser extent, hatchery upper Columbia chinook.

To catch its share of Willamette salmon without using up its quota of wild upper Columbia chinook too quickly, the net fleet has shifted to tangle nets.

Tangle nets are a smaller mesh. They capture chinook and steelhead by the teeth or jaw, rather than the gills. Wild fish released from tangle nets have a much higher survival rate.

But tangle nets also result in a much higher handle of steelhead, thus the proposal to increase the incidental kill.

The proposal to increase the kill of wild winter steelhead has drawn the ire of sportsmen and wild-fish conservation advocates.

On Saturday, 27 of them testified before the Fish and Wildlife Commission, asking the panel to not waver from the 2 percent ceiling on steelhead. Eleven others, mostly Columbia River commercial fishermen, were in favor of an increase.

Guy Norman, regional director of the state Department of Fish and Wildlife, said the goal is to stay within the 2 percent level. But the agency wants the flexibility to exceed 2 percent in years when the limitation would result in the gillnet fleet falling short of its chinook allocation.

Will Roehl, a commission member from Bellingham, said sportsmen kill as many as 6 percent of the wild winter steelhead in Southwest Washington tributary streams while catching hatchery fish, yet oppose the commercials getting more than 2 percent in the lower Columbia.

He said the "righteous indignation'' by sportsmen is "hypocritical.''

Commission member Bob Tuck of Selah was the lone holdout against the increase. He said there are good arguments on both sides of the argument, but "the tie goes to fish.''

Commission chairman Ron Ozment of Cathlamet pointed out that the decision is only for 2005.

Both the Oregon and Washington departments of Fish and Wildlife have committed to extensive risk assessments on wild winter steelhead runs prior to next year.