Thursday July 17, 2025
The Spokesman-Review —
Anglers will get a chance to take home chinook salmon from a portion of the the Upper Columbia River this summer.
The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife announced this week that an upgraded forecast for chinook salmon returns prompted them to open summer chinook harvest on the Columbia between Rocky Reach and Wells dams starting on Wednesday.
A technical advisory committee upgraded the summer chinook run size to 43,200. WDFW said in its alert that a run of that size means there are enough fish to allow recreational harvest, though the amount available is subject to change.
WDFW is opening the fishery Wednesdays through Saturdays until Aug. 31. Anglers between the two dams near Wenatchee and Chelan will be allowed to take home a limit of four salmon larger than 12 inches each day, including no more than one adult hatchery chinook. Anglers also are limited to no more than two sockeye.
Wild adult chinook and all coho must be released. Summer chinook fishing remains closed on the rest of the upper Columbia.
Summer runs of anadromous fish are expected to be down across the board this year, a drop that matches the seesaw pattern fisheries managers have come to expect – more fish in even years, less fish in odd years. Odd years are when pink salmon numbers balloon in the Pacific Ocean and compete with other species for food.
The Fish Passage Center’s daily salmon reports showed that more than 21,000 had gone past Rocky Reach Dam as of last Friday.
Earlier this month, WDFW moved to limit sockeye fishing on the upper Columbia after the run size projection was dropped from more than 350,000 to 183,200.
But there are enough sockeye bound for Lake Wenatchee to let anglers harvest them there. WDFW said Wednesday that it would allow sockeye retention on the lake beginning one hour before sunrise on Wednesday.
WDFW said in its notice that an analysis of sockeye passage at Tumwater Dam and the dams on the mainstem Columbia are leading the agency to predict a surplus of sockeye are headed for the lake.
Anglers will be limited to four sockeye with a minimum size of 12 inches. The season is set to close one hour after sunset on Aug. 31.
Lake Wenatchee State Park plans be open from 4 a.m. to dusk from Wednesday to Aug. 6. From Aug. 7 to Aug. 31, the park will go back to its regular hours of 6:30 a.m. to dusk.