Just when you thoguht it might be worthwhile going up in the gorge for the URB's they go and do this kind of BS!
Subject:
ODFW News: Aug 17 - Col. R. commercial seasons
Date:
Fri, 17 Aug 2001 18:26:07 -0700
From:
"Anne Pressentin" <Anne.M.Pressentin@DFW.STATE.OR.US>



Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife
Internet: www.dfw.state.or.us

For Immediate Release August 17, 2001

Columbia River Commercial Salmon Seasons Set
Seasons Begin Monday Evening

VANCOUVER, Wash. - Oregon and Washington fishery managers Friday established commercial salmon fishing seasons for non-Indians in the Columbia River below Bonneville Dam and for treaty Indians between Bonneville and McNary dams that take advantage of healthy returns of fall chinook.
Fishery managers from the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife (ODFW) and the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) meet as the Columbia River Compact throughout the year to establish and monitor commercial and sport fishing seasons in the river.
Fish harvested during the commercial seasons are sold in markets and restaurants throughout the Pacific Northwest.
A season for non-Indian commercial fishers will occur near Portland nightly Aug. 20 - 23 from 8 p.m. to 6 a.m. from the I-205 Bridge upstream to Beacon Rock. The gill-net fishery will target the "upriver bright" fall chinook run, which is expected to number about 180,000 fish. A total of 5,000 to 8,000 chinook and 200-400 sturgeon are expected to be landed. Nets are restricted to 9-inch minimum mesh size to reduce the handling of steelhead.
The treaty Indian fall fishery will begin 6 a.m. on Aug 28 and will continue until 6 p.m. Sept. 1. An Indian fishery was also set between 6 a.m., Sept. 4 to 6 p.m., Sept. 8. This fishery is expected to catch about 18,100 chinook and 6,100 steelhead. Members of the public may buy treaty Indian-caught salmon and steelhead during the open commercial seasons.
Another Columbia River Compact hearing is scheduled for 1 p.m., Sept. 7 at the Water Resources Education Center in Vancouver, Wash. to update salmon and steelhead stock staus and consider additional non-Indian and treaty Indian commercial seasons.
The Compact also established commercial salmon seasons to open Sept. 4 in Youngs Bay near Astoria and several other off-channel sites near the Oregon and Washington shores between Tongue Point and Skamokawa, Wash.
All Columbia River recreational and commercial salmon and steelhead seasons are focused on healthy stocks of fish. Impacts to fish stocks listed as threatened or endangered under the federal Endangered Species Act (ESA) are minimized to the extent possible. As the federal agency charged with carrying out the provisions of the ESA, the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) approves all fisheries.
More information regarding Columbia River salmon and steelhead stock status and fisheries is available on the ODFW website at www.dfw.state.or.us/ODFWhtml/InfoCntrFish/InterFish/Index.html.

###


---------
odfw-news is hosted by the Oregon State Library

I believe this to be the same BS the states did to the spring fishery, Dont you think that they should know by now that the sport fishery generates millions.

GRRRRRRRRRR