Salmon anglers can fish for spring chinook without leaving downtown Portland.
The spring chinook salmon runs to the Willamette, Cowlitz, Kalama and Lewis rivers are forecast to be similar in 2015 to this year — mediocre in the Willamette and Cowlitz and poor in the Kalama and Lewis.
The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife is predicting 55,400 Willamette-origin spring chinook will return to the Columbia River.
That compares in 2014 to forecast of 58,700 and an actual return of 51,800.
Fishing in the lower Willamette is anticipated to be open daily with a two-hatchery-fish bag limit. In 2014, that season resulted 77,100 angler trips with a kept catch of 7,900 adult spring chinook and 1,400 released.
According to John North of the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, the releases of spring chinook in the Willamette have been stable, averaging 6.06 million annually in the past eight years with a low of 5.6 million and a high of 6.4 million.
The Cowlitz River continues to perform best among the three lower Columbia tributaries in Washington with spring salmon.
The Department of Fish and Wildlife is forecasting 11,200 spring chinook will return to the Cowlitz.
That forecast compares to a prediction of 7,800 a year ago with an actual return of 10,500 spring chinook.
The Cowlitz was open daily with a two-hatchery-fish bag limit. The kept catch was 4,300 adult and 600 jack chinook kept. A similar season is anticipated in 2015.
An improvement is forecast for the Kalama River, although the numbers are not good.
Washington predicts 1,900 spring chinook back to the Kalama River in 2015, compared to a forecast of just 500 a year ago, although the actual return was 1,000 fish. If 1,900 chinook return, it will be the largest number since 2007.
The Kalama was closed to fishing from Feb. 17 through June 27 in 2014 with no catch reported after it finally opened.
The woes of the North Fork of the Lewis River continue with just 1,100 spring chinook forecast to return. The forecast for 2014 was 1,100 with a return of 1,500.
Aaron Roberts, manager of the state hatcheries on the Lewis River, said officials are well aware that spring chinook returns to the North Fork of the Lewis have nosedived in the past five years.
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The temperature curve of the North Fork of the Lewis is not typical of a spring chinook stream due to the three reservoirs upstream of the hatcheries, he said.
Water temperatures in the 60s in October and November are not good for spring chinook rearing, he said.
“Those reservoirs act as a heat sink and we get our warmest temperatures in October and November,” Roberts said. “That makes the fish smolt early and want to head out. Holding them causes stress and brings on disease.”
Smolting is the physiological process that makes anadromous fish capable of adapting to saltwater.
The department is attempting some changes to try to improve returns.
Experimentation is under way with release timing and size at release. Some spring chinook were held at Speelyai Hatchery instead of Lewis River due to Speelyai’s better temperatures.
About 300,000 chinook were released in October out of the 1.25 million annually stocked in the lower North Fork of the Lewis, he said.
“The frustrating thing about spring chinook is you have to wait five years to learn about a brood year,” Roberts said.
Poor ocean survival conditions also can play a role.
“Anything El Nino (warm water, more predators) related seems to really hit that stock hard,” Roberts said.
Angling was closed in the Lewis from Feb. 17 through July 31. About 100 adults and five jack spring chinook were kept starting in August.
Angling restrictions are likely again for both the Kalama and Lewis rivers.
Spring forecasts for the mid-Columbia tributaries are anticipated in January.
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