Why Salmon Seasons are Closed

By Paul Janssen, Idaho Department of Fish and Game "Say what! The salmon season is closing already? The river is full of salmon and fishing is just getting really good. How can that be?" Does this comment sound familiar? It is one that Idaho Fish and Game staff members hear often, generally on the heels of an announcement closing a Chinook salmon fishing season in one of the handful of rivers in the state lucky enough to have a salmon season. Here's some background that should help you better understand the factors that can lead to a salmon season closure. Each year, returning adult salmon that originated from salmon hatcheries- that is, adipose-fin-clipped salmon-are split up three ways. The first priority in dividing up a salmon run is making sure that we fill to capacity each of the salmon hatcheries around the state. This allows for maximum smolt (ocean bound juvenile salmon) releases two years later. For example, the Rapid River Hatchery needs around 2,500 adult salmon and the McCall Fish Hatchery, which traps salmon in the South Fork of the Salmon River, needs around 1,500 adult salmon to secure the maximum number of salmon eggs that each hatchery can effectively raise to smolt size. Numbers of migrating salmon are closely monitored at several of the dams along the Snake and Columbia rivers. These numbers are used to estimate the number of salmon returning to a given hatchery, such as Rapid River. When the estimates indicate that a specific hatchery quota will be met, the remaining "surplus" hatchery salmon are split 50-50 between tribal and non-tribal anglers. This year, an estimated 4,500 salmon were bound for Rapid River, providing a harvestable surplus of around 2,000 salmon. This allowed for the harvest of 1,000 salmon each by tribal and non-tribal anglers. Once the fishing season begins, Fish and Game monitors harvest closely to ensure that the quota is not exceeded-an error that could jeopardize a hatchery's maximum production and affect fishing opportunities four years later. If anglers are successful at catching fish early-to-midway through the run, the season can end quickly even with a large number of fish still in the river. This phenomenon leaves anglers wondering why they have to quit fishing. Now throw in wild Chinook-listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act-with the hatchery fish, and it gets even more frustrating for anglers. While there may be a large surplus of hatchery fish in a given river, anglers are allowed to catch and release only a certain number of wild Chinook during the season, and this number changes each year with run size. Therefore, if anglers catch and release too many wild salmon before the hatchery fish harvest quota is met, the season will still end. That is often the case for the salmon season on the South Fork of the Salmon River. This circumstance leaves even more harvestable fish in the river. When it happens, the surplus hatchery fish are trapped and distributed to food banks and other tribal and non-tribal organizations. Although it can be very frustrating to anglers to quit fishing while plenty of salmon remain in the river, it is important to remember that we quit fishing for important reasons. The department goes to great lengths to maximize hatchery Chinook harvest for Idaho's sport anglers. Paul Janssen is the regional fisheries biologist Southwest Region. (This story originally ran July 10, 2006.)