Once you retain the adult limit, no more fishing for jacks. This was meant for chinook years ago. Now being enforced for coho?

Isn't that true for all rivers in Washington if the daily limit allows for more salmon than the adult limit?

Satsop sure has changed course since I last fished it. Erosion control poles on lower East Fork.

Unfortunately no coho or jacks for me yesterday. I hooked a monster Chinook and lost it. Had one coho chase my jig and saw a few caught along with Chinook and a pikeminnow.

What's with all the pikeminnow? I thought they were only in the Columbia and tribs.

Chehalis system has PLENTY of pikeminnow. Always has....

10/09/2021

Indeed, the Chehalis system has them. Pikeminnow are always killed, when I catch them......If they float, the eagles will get them, some very large pikeminnows this year.....tough for eagles to "pick and fly"!!!!!

Why do you kill them drifter? I know they eat young salmon and with the dams on the Columbia they can get a buffet so that makes sense, but why on a river like the satsop? Aren't they a native fish?

Always kill sqauwfish. I caught one on a river I had never caught one before and killed it. They are a sign of a bad strain of fish that must be nipped in the bud.

Trust me they aren’t worthy.

Pikeminnow are native to the basin. That makes them more "worthy" than hatchery salmon. Ironically, while pikeminnow DO eat juvenile salmonids, pikeminnow juveniles and carcasses are likely an important food source for juvenile salmon and steelhead.

Like the poster above, I think the dams on the Columbia creating smorgasbords for predators is why pikeminnow are assumed to be such a problem species there. In free-flowing rivers, there is no bounty on them. That is for a reason.

I figure all the stuff that was in these rivers before we started "managing" them belongs there. Everything we selectively eliminate from the system can have unknown consequences. We certainly don't need to provide them any "protection," but I don't think we should go out of our way to kill them at every opportunity.

They handle low D. O. and high water Temps quite well allowing their native populations to take advantage of human actions in the waterways and how we live.
Good luck controlling them, they're basically born pregnant but their impact on the food source and salmonid predation is going become more of an issue at some point with the current trend of low returns, spring-fall streamflow lows continued development in the watershed.

This year we were blessed with some rains to help with the water flow.

The river comes back to life with the Fall flows.

I recall one study on pike minnow predation at Columbia dams. The conclusion was that while they ate lots of salmonids it could not be shown that they were eating healthy fish. The authors believed that much of th consumption was on stunned fish or fish otherwise incapacitated by passing through the dams.

IF this is true the pikeminnow in freeflowing/undammed streams aren't a problem. Further, are they eating fish that would recover and survive?

I believe this is a man made problem.

CM - Your question has plagued the pikeminnow program on the Columbia River for decades.

As you likely know, BPA spends thousands of ratepayer dollars on a bounty program for catching and removing adult pikeminnow from the Columbia River. The basis for that program is that pikeminnow eat lots of juvenile salmon as they are migrating downstream. There are lots of pics showing adult pikeminnow with their guts full of juvenile salmon. The presumption is that all those salmon smolts were healthy fish before they were eaten. And, if not for pikeminnow, those smolts would become adult salmon in 2-3 years.

It’s not hard to translate all those dead smolts to lost adults. As such, the conservation benefit of the pikeminnow program appears large, and obvious.

But what if adult pikeminnow are eating dead or injured smolts after they pass the dams? (as you suggest)

If that’s the case, the conservation benefit of the program goes to zero. Those smolts weren’t going to become adults. Ever. And, the pikeminnow program will have spent millions of dollars for no reason.

Is there any evidence to indicate whether pikeminnow are eating healthy smolts or dead fish?

I'm not aware of any direct evidence of either outcome. However, there is one small piece of circumstantial evidence to indicate they’re eating dead or dying smolts. Here it is: The anglers who specialize in catching adult pikeminnow indicate the most productive way of catching them is to use chicken livers for bait, on a single hook, on the bottom.

What does that tell you? It tells me that pikeminnow are scavenging on the bottom looking for food, and thus pick up the chicken livers. They may not be chasing live smolts that are passing by in the water column. As such, all those smolts in the guts of adult pikeminnow were already dead or injured before they were eaten. The bottom line is that the conservation benefit of the pikeminnow program may be something close to zero.

I will admit the evidence is weak. But that’s all we have. If there is other evidence to the contrary, I haven’t seen it.

Plus, nobody wants to know the right answer. Everyone wants to assume the program has terrific conservation benefits for salmon, and it must continue. The program provides lots of dollars to WDFW/ODFW and the pikeminnow anglers. Plus, BPA gets great publicity from the program.

But the salmon may not be benefitting at all. And neither are the ratepayers.