ASTORIA -- Not many boats ventured onto the lower Columbia River estuary Thursday for the opening of the popular Buoy 10 salmon season.
It's early, after all, and the Pacific Ocean outside the river's mouth has plenty of salmon still stuffing themselves before wandering inshore and upriver in the next few weeks.
Still, dozens who trolled the entrance to Youngs Bay found willing biters. Many were the highly prized, fat-laden, select-area bright chinook, released from pens to return as commercial prizes.
They're missing left ventral fins, if you're wondering how to tell.
That's important, because this is also the first year of significant returns from another type of hatchery-raised chinook, the tule, also now being released in the bay. They have almost no fat, are nearly ready to spawn when they hit freshwater and are barely marketable. But the hatchery releases were moved away from Big Creek, a small local tributary, to reduce straying onto wild tule chinook spawning beds.
This is likely the last season anglers will get this kind of shot at the select area brights. Legislation recently signed into law by Gov. John Kitzhaber will create a no-sportfishing buffer off Youngs Bay by the 2014 fishing season. The intent is to reduce angler interception of the far more valuable fish in partial exchange for shifting commercial gill-nets off the mainstem Columbia.
BUOY 10 Caution! Don't forget the new barbless-hook rules apply to the Buoy 10 fishery as well as the rest of the Columbia and lower Willamette rivers.
Law enforcement boats spent most of the morning Thursday checking the fleet of anglers outside the bay.
Regulations also allow only one chinook per day inside the estuary (but two-salmon/steelhead overall) and no jacks west of Tongue Point. Coho, but not chinook, must be missing an adipose fin.
Duck/goose seasons set: Duck seasons will look just about like last year, but goose hunters are getting some significant expansions this fall.
The Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission set fall bird seasons Friday at their monthly meeting in Eugene.
For the first time since restrictive goose regulations began in northwest Oregon, hunters on Sauvie Island's public hunting area will be allowed to take snow geese on certain hunt days. All northwest goose zone permit rules will be in effect and a northwest zone permit will be required. Snow goose hunting will close if a single dusky Canada goose is shot. Officers will watch closely for anyone accidentally shooting a swan.
There will be no more "dark goose" designation. Instead there will be seasons for Canada geese and white-fronted geese, which will get their own category and bag limit (six per day in most areas).
The September goose daily limit has been increased to five in eastern Oregon and the white goose limit in Malheur County will double to 20 per day.
The major changes to duck hunting are a reduction in scaup, with a shorter season (starts Nov. 2 in zone 1) and bag limit (three daily), and an increase in canvasback bag limits to two per day instead of one.
All other duck hunting will mirror last fall.
The Oregon bird-hunting synopsis will be published sometime in the next few weeks and available at all outlets.
Sturgeon retention in 2014: The commission also set 2014 angling regulations Friday.
Highlights include the statewide shift to catch and release fishing only for sturgeon...EXCEPT: Beginning next year, sturgeon can be kept in the Willamette River above (south of) Willamette Falls. Limit is one per day, two per season, between 38 and 54 inches fork length. There are pockets of sturgeon up there, mostly holdovers from years past when baby sturgeon were planted. ?
The commission also approved extension of the no-fishing sanctuary on the Willamette all the way down to the railroad bridge between Milwaukie and Lake Oswego. That means no sturgeon fishing at all, even catch and release, from May 1 to Aug. 31.
Halibut hearings: Anglers are asked to attend public meetings beginning next week to voice their opinions about 2014 halibut fishing seasons and 2015-16 groundfish seasons.
Meetings all begin at 7 p.m. and are set for: Tuesday, Tillamook office of the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife; Wednesday, Holiday Inn Express, Newport; Monday, Aug. 12, Best Western Beachfront Inn, Brookings; Tuesday, Aug. 13, North Bend Public Library.
Source: http://www.oregonlive.com/sports/oregonian/bill_monroe/index.ssf/2013/08/post_86.html
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