State officials announced Monday there will be no commercial fishing on Tuesday in the lower Columbia River after test netting caught too high a ratio of winter steelhead.
Sixteen test drifts on Sunday in the Wahkiakum and Cowlitz county stretches of the Columbia caught 14 spring chinook and 25 steelhead.
Eighty-six percent of the spring chinook were fin-clipped and 64 percent were headed for waters upstream of Bonneville Dam.
Only 44 percent of the steelhead were fin-clipped.
The test fishermen used 4.25-inch-mesh tangle nets.
The lower Columbia is closed to sport fishing on Tuesday to prevent conflict with the commercial fleet. Angling will remain closed, despite the lack of a commercial fishery.
Test fishing will resume next Sunday. Angling will be closed on March 31 in case a commercial season is adopted by the Columbia River Compact.
