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Display, Experts Kick Off Pikeminnow Program on Saturday by Staff Statesman Journal, April 30, 2010

Officials with the Northern Pikeminnow Sport Reward Fishery Program will kick off the start of the season with a show-and-tell on Saturday, the start of the 2010 season.

It's 1 to 4 p.m. at the M. James Gleason Memorial Boat Ramp on the Columbia River.

Take exit 307 off of Interstate 5 and head east on NE Marine Drive. The boat ramp is across from Portland International Airport at 15475 Ferry Road.

You can check out the aquarium truck for a look at the salmon predators, talk to expert pikeminnow anglers and learn the best fishing techniques and locations.

There also will be representatives from the program-sponsoring Bonneville Power Administration, the Pacific States Marine Fisheries Commission and the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife.

The annual reward program is designed to thin the numbers of the predatory fish that feast on out-migrating young salmon and steelhead on the Columbia and Snake rivers.

Registered anglers are paid $4 to $8 for northern pikeminnow 9 inches or longer caught in the Columbia from the mouth to Priest Rapids Dam, and on the Snake from the mouth to Hells Canyon Dam rivers.

The more you catch and turn in, the more the fish are worth.

The first 100 fetch $4 each. The next 300 are worth $5 each, and after 400 fish are caught and turned in, the rest are worth $8 each. As an added incentive, specially tagged fish are worth $500.

The tag program is both an angler incentive and as one indicator of the percentage of pikeminnow in the population.

The program goes until Sept. 30.

Since 1991, more than 3 million pikeminnow have been removed, and biologists estimate that the predation has been cut by 40 percent.

For the rules, check-in sites or other information, click here.