Oregon Fishing News

Link: http://www.nwfish.com

All of the news you see is about the ocean chinook salmon closures off of most of Oregon and all of California. None of the news seems to mention that Oregons rivers are set to have a fantastic year of coho salmon fishing, so good that a few rivers will most likely have a limited harvest of wild coho salmon. Many areas of the Ocean while closed for chinook salmon will have expanded limits of hatchery silver salmon. This years ocean quota is over 100,000 fish compared to last years of around 20,000 fish which will give most of the Oregon coast a full season of salmon fishing. You wont be able to keep the kings but with abundant silver salmon most fisherman wont mind. The Columbia river is forecast to have over 2 million fish returning in the fall of 2009 which will make the popular buoy 10 fishery at the mouth quite a specticle with huge crowds and tons of fish caught, approximately 1.2 million of those fish are predicted to be hatchery silver salmon. In the buoy 10 fishery as well as upriver in the Portland area fisherman can keep up to one chinook salmon per person per day as well as coho salmon. Buoy 10 is scheduled to allow 2 fish per person per day only one of which may be a chinook salmon until September 1st. On September 1 it changes to 3 coho salmon per person and closed to chinook salmon. The river remains open for chinook salmon further upstream. The Chinook runs on other coastal rivers are forecast to be down again this year but huge returns of silver salmon will likely allow those fishery's to enjoy good fishing for large coastal coho salmon with many of them allowing harvest of wild fish. So if you like to salmon fish and all of the bad news about ocean chinook is getting you down, you may want to make plans to visit oregon from June to November to get in on some great coastal or Columbia River salmon fishing.