State biologists have approved a 12-hour commercial gill-net fishery in the lower Columbia River because the numbers of spring Chinook has been improved. The season is open only for Tuesday from noon until midnight. It’s the fourth, and last, day set aside in March for commercial fishing. High numbers of steelhead still in the river prompted cancellation of three other scheduled Tuesday nettings this month.
Information revealed that sportfishing is closed Tuesday on the lower Columbia River. Approximately 150 netters are expected to participate from the mouth of the river to the Interstate 205 bridge. According to the report biologists estimate 8,000 hatchery spring chinook (5,320 of them upriver Columbia salmon) will be caught, a figure challenged by commercial netters listening to the call. They said the test netting results didn’t support a catch that high.
Experts say that if the commercial catch isn’t as high as projected, another, shorter net season might be set for Thursday evening. The states said they will meet again Wednesday afternoon by telephone but didn’t set a time. Biologists said they want to avoid gill-netting in the lower Columbia too far into April, when the bulk of a 470,000 upriver spring chinook run enters the river.
