Salmon limits won't affect Columbia

An informal vote by the Pacific Fishery Management Council stopped short of a complete shutdown of the Pacific salmon fishery on the Oregon and California coasts, but commercial and sport fishing will be sharply curtailed.

A formal recommendation from the council to federal fisheries managers is expected today.

The move isn't expected to have any effect on fish runs in the Columbia River Basin because migrating fish in this region come from farther north, said Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission biologist Mike Matylewich.

Drastic cuts in fisheries will occur below Oregon's Cannon Beach, which is about 20 miles south of the Columbia River's mouth, he said.

But the 2008 season almost certainly will be reduced to record lows by the collapse of Sacramento River chinook, vital to open-ocean fishing off Oregon and California, officials told The Oregonian newspaper Tuesday.

"The season is a disaster from the get-go, regardless," said Bob Lohn, regional administrator for the National Marine Fisheries Service, the top U.S. agency overseeing salmon.

At best, under the proposals under discussion, Oregon's commercial trollers would get an abbreviated season from May 1 to May 30 from Cape Falcon, near Manzanita, to Humbug Mountain, just below Port Orford. Trollers would be barred entirely from the far more productive summer season.

Salmon-seeking sport fishing and charter boat operators south of Cape Falcon likely would see charter trips cut from 181,000 last year to no more than 23,000 this year.

Sport fishing north of Cape Falcon, hurt by low Columbia River natural coho numbers, would also see sharp cuts.

Oregon's sport and charter boats operating south of Cape Falcon would be allowed to catch two hatchery coho a day per person from June 22 through Aug. 31. For all but the south coast, they would also be allowed a bag limit of one chinook a day from May 1 to June 15. South of Humbug Mountain, where concerns about Klamath River fish abound, the chinook catch will be limited to three holiday weekends.

Commercial restrictions would not apply to Washington state or to the small portion of Oregon's coast north of Cape Falcon, far less dependent on Sacramento chinook.

But sport fishing north of Cape Falcon would also see huge reductions in salmon limits, also because of low natural coho salmon numbers in the Columbia River.

-- Compiled from staff and news service reports