Three days of tangle-net commercial fishing to target on coho salmon in the lower Columbia River were approved Monday.
Commercial fishermen using 3.75-inch-maximum-mesh nets will fish downstream of the Lewis River from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. Thursday, plus on Oct. 5 and Oct. 7.
Government biologists are unsure about the strength of the Columbia River coho run in 2015.
Jeff Whisler of the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife said 146,200 early-stock coho were forecast to pass Bonneville Dam by Thursday, however the actual count will finish at about 27,000.
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.
It’s too early to have much of a handle on the strength of the late-stock coho, he added.
State biologists expect only about 40 commercial fishermen to participate in the tangle-net season adopted for this week.
Only fin-clipped coho can be kept, although any chinook may be retained by the commercials in the three days of fishing.
Up to 51,000 coho originally were allocated for the October commercial catch, with up to 16,000 in the tangle nets. An any-coho season using 6-inch-maximum-mesh nets is anticipated later in October.
Officials project 30 percent of the wild coho released from the tangle nets eventually will die.
Hobe Kytr of Salmon For All, an Astoria-based commercial fishing group, said only a relatively few netters will participate in the tangle-net season.
“This tangle net fishery is not exactly popular among the lower river fleet,’’ Kytr said.
Les Clark, a gillnetter from Chinook, Wash., said gillnetting on Sunday night between the Lewis River and Beacon Rock was poor, with about half the chinook being “black junk.’’
The Columbia River Compact will meet by teleconference at 4 p.m. Wednesday to review Sunday’s catch composition and determine if more netting targeting on chinook upstream of the Lewis River can be allowed.
