In a banner year for fall chinook, coho salmon returns to the Columbia River might prove to be a major disappointment.
This spring, government biologists forecast a run of 540,000 coho would enter the river including a strong component destined for upstream of Bonneville Dam.
Biologist Jeff Whisler of the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife told the Columbia River Compact this week that a forecast of 146,200 early-stock coho at Bonneville Dam through Sept. 30 will be an actual return of about 27,000.
Commercial coho catches in the off-channel areas of the lower Columbia have been low and the sport catch of coho at Buoy 10 in the estuary has been minimal lately, Whisler said.
Early coho enter the Columbia River from August through late September. Late coho enter from mid-September into November.
“We don’t have a good indicator of what the late coho run is looking like now,’’ Whisler said this week.
Guy Norman, acting fisheries chief of the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, said late coho runs do not always follow the pattern of early coho, but that Washington and Oregon will need to proceed cautiously with October commercial fishing season in the lower Columbia.
“It looks like we’re going to be in trouble with the coho fishery,’’ said Jack Marincovich of Astoria, a commercial fisherman.
“I hope they show up,’’ said Liz Hamilton of the Northwest Sportfishing Industry Association. “There’s a lot of folks nervous.’’
Kent Martin, a Wahkiakum County commercial fisherman, said three days of commercial tangle-net fishing for coho today, Monday and Wednesday should offer a glimpse on coho abundance.
Martin said he’s fished for coho in Alaska and Washington and they tend to be “feast or famine. We’ll know in about the next 10 days.’’
The bi-state Columbia River reforms that began in 2013 call for a healthy commercial coho fishery in October to mitigate for spring and summer losses of chinook, he noted.
