Huge chinook return would be worth gold

The first day of winter is more than a week away, but salmon anglers already have spring fever as close to a half-million spring chinook are expected to swim up the Columbia River.

State, federal and tribal fishery managers announced the 2010 preseason forecast this week, and if estimates are correct, 470,000 upriver spring chinook will return (79,100 are wild fish). That would be the largest run to the Columbia River since 1938.

That forecast is up significantly from last year's 169,300. The largest recent return was 437,900 in 2001.

"This is one of those fisheries that motivates people to get their gear out, and the effects can be felt from Klamath Falls [Ore.] clear up to Woodinville, and everywhere in between," said Liz Hamilton, the executive director for the Northwest Sportfishing Industry Association. "While I'm cautious about what may actually return, I can say this is such a wonderful early Christmas present for us to enjoy."

That note of caution is understandable when it comes to unpredictable recent spring chinook returns.

"Hopefully, we don't get too excited about the prediction because there is a lot of variances in what we came up with, and the forecast could be much higher or way lower," said Stuart Ellis, chairman of the Columbia River Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) and Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission scientist.

Ellis said the committee looked at more than 18 different forecasts, but ended up with a group of seven that ranged from 366,000 to 528,000 adult fish.

In past years, fish managers relied mainly on jack chinook counts as a barometer for predicting the following year's adult fish forecasts, which have been off by as much as 45 percent in four of the last six years. Jacks are immature males that return after one or two years in the ocean.

TAC members were wary of the record spring jack chinook counted at Bonneville Dam this past spring.

"This year we looked at more different kinds of methods than we've ever looked at," Ellis said. "We also know that the environment for juvenile salmon may be changing and we needed to account for that and ocean conditions, too.

"So the 470,000 is just our assessment of the most reasonable prediction based on the data we had available."

Ellis says even the most pessimistic TAC biologists are still optimistic there will be a very good run in 2010.

Columbia River spring chinook are prized for their tasty, Omega-3-laced, red-orange-colored meat, which is similar to fish from Alaska's Copper River.

The height of the spring chinook return is March and April, when anglers breaking out of the winter doldrums create long lines at boat ramps on both sides of the Columbia, and also stirs a frenzy for tribal and nontribal commercial fishermen.

Sport angler trips in the Lower Columbia have averaged 129,000 since 2002.

A statewide study in 2008 pointed out that freshwater anglers in 2006 spent on average about $58 per day. Based on that figure, sport anglers spend $8 million toward the lower river fishery alone.

The commercial fishery also receives the highest price for spring chinook, and recent years averaged $7 to $10 per pound.

"The ripple effect on the amount of dollars this spring chinook fishery contributes from tackle sales, tire shops to boat manufacturers and many others is huge," Hamilton said. "It gets people excited to spend money in a big way, and the only other fishery I've seen that compares would be the Lake Washington sockeye fishery.

"They [spring chinook] are worth their weight in gold, and the dollars these fish generate will be spread for hundreds of miles along the river, from Cathlamet all the way up into Idaho."

Columbia sport and commercial fishing seasons will be announced Feb. 18.

Spring chinook forecasts for the Willamette, Lewis, Kalama, Cowlitz and Sandy rivers will be released soon, and while no figures are out yet, it appears they'll see better returns than in past years.

Mark Yuasa: 206-464-8780 or myuasa@seattletimes.com