PORTLAND — Two conservation groups have asked the Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission to enact emergency sport-fishing restrictions to protect summer steelhead returning to the Columbia and Snake rivers.
Specifically, the Wild Fish Conservancy and The Conservation Angler have presented Oregon with a petition calling for reducing the steelhead daily bag limit to one hatchery fish on the entire Columbia and Snake rivers and at cold-water refuges such as Herman Creek and the mouth of the Deschutes River.
The limit was cut to one fish effective Aug. 1 downstream of Bonneville Dam. It applies between Bonneville Dam and McNary Dam beginning on Sept. 1 and between McNary Dam, near Umatilla, Ore., and the Highway 395 Bridge at Pasco on Nov. 1.
The two groups want the one-fish limit in the Deschutes, John Day and Grand Ronde rivers, too.
The 52,886 steelhead counted July 1 through Aug. 4 at Bonneville Dam are the lowest since 39,443 in 1998.
