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Though Sockeye Return to Columbia River is Booming, Angler Retention Shut Down to Protect Struggling, ESA-Listed Snake River Sockeye by Staff Columbia Basin Bulletin, July 5, 2024

Last week, Oregon and Washington fisheries managers shut down retention of Columbia River sockeye salmon from the ocean to the two-state border at Hwy 395 near Pasco, WA, even as the run size forecast rose twice and by early this week had nearly doubled.

The two-state Columbia River Compact closed the river to retention of sockeye without a hearing last week effective Friday, June 28. Angling effort and catch rates had been exceptionally high, pushing catch by anglers beyond their allocation, which was based on a preseason forecast for sockeye of 401,700 fish, according to a July 26 Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife press release announcing the closure.

Most sockeye are headed to the upper Columbia Basin, with the vast majority returning to the Okanogan River Basin in Washington and British Columbia, as well as the Wenatchee River Basin.

However, the Columbia River sockeye run includes Snake River sockeye, a small, but important component of the run. Snake River fish were listed as endangered in November 1991 under the federal Endangered Species Act, which is a limiting factor when determining allocations.

The allocation is based on the U.S. v Oregon Technical Advisory Committee's preseason forecast for sockeye of 401,700 fish. Due to their ESA listing, non-treaty fisheries (both recreational and commercial) downstream of the Snake River are allocated just 1 percent of the forecasted run in order to limit take of the endangered Snake River fish.

The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife said in a news release announcing the fishery closure that the Snake River run of sockeye has improved, with under 2,000 returning to the river last year, but 3,800 forecasted to return this year. "These fish are still in need of protection," ODFW said.

"Sockeye fishing has been phenomenal this year in many areas of the Columbia," said Jeff Whisler, ODFW's Columbia River fisheries manager. "However, we still have to be mindful of the fact that some of these sockeye are listed under the Endangered Species Act and harvest needs to be managed to provide adequate protection for those fish."

Also this week, the Compact approved more summer commercial gillnet and platform fisheries upstream of Bonneville Dam for Treaty fishers. The Treaty allocation for sockeye is 7 percent of the run.

Based on the pre-season forecast of 401,700 fish, the Treaty fisheries' sockeye share is 28,119 fish, but total projected catch through weeks 27 -- 31 would be 30,239 fish, according to the June 27 Summer Fact Sheet No. 3.

The tribes had proposed a slightly higher harvest of sockeye than was allocated by the pre-season forecast because they anticipated a big update to that forecast.

"Normally we would not plan a fishery to exceed that 28,119 limit," said Stuart Ellis of the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission. Ellis is also a part of TAC. "But in this case, it was abundantly clear that the run would exceed the forecast and that harvest limit was unreasonably low in the tribes' opinion. The tribes chose to plan our two additional gillnet openings based on a presumed run of 450K (which we also thought would be a very low estimate). Had TAC not updated the run at least that high, we could have got back together and either rescinded the second opening or taken action with the platform fishery in late July."

But TAC did update the run -- twice in less than a week. The day before the sockeye closure, TAC met to review the sockeye return.

"Based on the information to date and discussion of the output from several Bonneville Dam passage projection models, TAC updated the expected 2024 return of Columbia River Sockeye to 568,000 fish at the Columbia River mouth," TAC said in a statement announcing their new forecast. "This projection assumes passage at Bonneville Dam is early relative to the recent 10-year average passage timing curve."

TAC met again this week, Monday July 1, and updated sockeye and upper Columbia summer Chinook run sizes, as well as providing a review of upriver Skamania stock summer steelhead passage (defined as those steelhead passing Bonneville Dam from April 1 -- June 30 annually).

In its statement of this week's meeting's results, TAC updated forecasted 2024 return of Columbia River Sockeye to 735,300 fish at the Columbia River mouth.

However, TAC also reduced the number of expected summer Chinook from its preseason forecast of 52,600 to an anticipated return of 40,200, a 24 percent drop in the summer Chinook run size.

The preseason forecast for upriver Skamania steelhead was 4,000 total fish, TAC said, including 1,900 unclipped fish. Actual passage of summer steelhead at Bonneville Dam from April 1 to June 30 was 9,409 fish and 4,137 unclipped fish, more than double TAC's preseason forecast.

TAC will meet again on Monday, July 8 to update sockeye and upper Columbia summer Chinook run sizes.

The Compact has not acted on either the lower run forecast for summer Chinook, nor the higher run forecast for sockeye. Recreational retention for sockeye remains closed, while retention for summer Chinook remains open (summer Chinook does not have an ESA-listed component).

However, WDFW did close Hanford Reach to retention of Chinook on the Columbia River from Columbia Point to Priest Rapids Dam beginning today, July 3. The recreational allocation of summer Chinook salmon below Priest Rapids Dam has been met, given the current run size, WDFW said. For more information here.

As of July 2, some 565,729 sockeye had passed Bonneville Dam and over 30,000 of the fish continue passing the dam daily. Last year on July 2, passage of sockeye at the dam was just 226,528 and the 10-year average is 237,901 fish.

While the run size of sockeye passing Bonneville Dam is much higher than the 10-year average, the number of sockeye heading into the lower Snake River is "lower than expected," said Jonathan Ebel with the Idaho Department of Fish and Game. In fact, it's just 77 percent of the 10-year average based on Snake River tagged fish passing Bonneville. This includes fish already in the lower Snake as well as fish on their way.

Still, according to the Fish Passage Center some 301 sockeye have been recorded passing Ice Harbor Dam (lowest of the four lower Snake River dams) as of July 2 and 58 have passed Lower Granite Dam (the upper of the four dams). Last year Ice Harbor had recorded 212 by July 2 and the 10-year average is 220, and Lower Granite had recorded 62, with a 10-year average of 44 fish.

As for the Compact's decision to close recreational sockeye angling June 28 without a hearing (angling for summer Chinook remained open), which is their normal course of action, they simply needed to make a quick decision based on allocation.

"When we need to make decisions quickly, we don't always have time to have a hearing, especially when that decision is a fishery closure," said Charlene Hurst, WDFW Columbia River Management Unit Lead, WDFW Fish Program. "We do strive to provide as much notice as possible for the action we are taking even when needing to move quickly, and also one of the reasons we have a list serve specific to the Columbia that anglers can subscribe to and have updates e-mailed to them for fishery changes."

That list serve can be accessed at WDFW mailing lists | Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife.

Tribal gillnetters are fishing with 7-inch minimum mesh nets. "That size limit is a tool the tribes use to address an internal management decision for sockeye harvest," Ellis said. "A lot of the sockeye harvest come from our platform fishery and so the tribes use the mesh restriction to help control the sockeye catch in the overall fishery without other restrictions on platform fishing. Columbia River sockeye are small enough that they do not get caught at very high rates in gillnets with at least 7 inch minimum mesh although there is definitely some sockeye catch in our gillnet fishery."

For more information on Treaty fishing, see the Summer Fact Sheet No. 3, Commercial Treaty Gillnet.

Sockeye salmon migrate through the lower Columbia River during June and July, with normal peak passage at Bonneville Dam around July 1. Until recently, the Columbia River sockeye run consisted only of the Okanogan, Wenatchee, and Snake River stocks, according to the joint river management staff report, "The 2024 OR WA Spring Chinook, Summer Chinook, Sockeye, Steelhead and Other Species.". The report was published Feb. 2, 2024. However, sockeye were reintroduced into the Yakima River in 2009 and passage has been re-established at Round Butte Dam on the Deschutes River. The upper Columbia stocks are considered healthy populations and, along with the Yakima and Deschutes River populations, are not ESA-listed.

During the 1990s, sockeye heading for the Snake River basin averaged 11 fish per year. During the 2000s, Snake River sockeye returns averaged 306 fish. This increase continued into the 2010s, when returns averaged 1,124 fish.

In 2023, 329,040 sockeye returned to the Columbia, which is near the 10-year average of 323,107 fish. The 2023 return consisted of 146,875 Wenatchee, 179,655 Okanogan, and 1,999 Snake river stocks. The Yakima River return was 443 sockeye. On the Deschutes River, sockeye passage at Round Butte Dam was 68 fish.

Some 1,566 sockeye were counted at Lower Granite Dam.

The 2024 preseason forecast of 401,700 fish, includes 97,000 Wenatchee stock, 288,700 Okanogan stock, and 3,800 Snake River stock. The forecast is 119 percent of the 10-year average return of 337,392 fish. The Wenatchee component is forecasted to be 127 percent of the 10-year average return. The return of Okanogan-origin fish is expected to be 110 percent of the 10-year average. A return of 3,900 fish to the Snake River would be 308 percent of the 10-year average return. Nominal returns to the Yakima and Deschutes rivers are also expected, the report says.

The 2024 early salmon forecasts are here.