SEATTLE - Recreational fisheries can open
during March and April in Southern Oregon but commercial trollers will have to
stay tied to the dock for the same two months.
Pacific Fishery Management Council members voted Friday to use emergency rules
to close commercial salmon seasons prior to May 1 for the area between Cape
Falcon and the Oregon and California border to avoid further impacts on
Klamath River fall Chinook stocks that scientists say are fewer in number this
year.
The season was scheduled to open on Wednesday.
In looking at the situation we're faced
with in 2006, I think it's reasonable we remove these fisheries and
maximize what opportunity may be available in the rest of 2006, Curt
Melcher, the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife representative on the
council, said.
Later, the council also approved letting the recreational fisheries between
Cape Falcon on the northern Oregon Coast and Humbug Mountain, just south of
Port Orford, open on time, on Wednesday.
Those recreational fisheries have no effect on the returning Klamath River
fall Chinook stocks in March and April, according to computer modeling
strategies.
I'm not inclined to close a fishery that has zero impacts, Melcher said.
Recreational seasons south of Humbug have shown in the past that they do have
some impact on fall Chinook, and consequently weren't scheduled to open in
March or April anyway.
The council also adjusted separate commercial and recreational seasons in
March and April in Northern California.
- Susan Chambers, staff writer