Dubya Wasting Tax Dollars on Pike Minnow Folly to Help Salmon

[JoseCuervo]

Instead of fixing the problem by breaching the Dams on the Lower Snake, we are now going to continue the program to pay fishermen to catch Pikeminnows. Kind of like baling a leaky boat with a teaspoon.....

Program aims to reduce pikeminnows, which eat salmon

Statesman Journal
May 25, 2004

Talk about the bounty of fishing, in more ways than one.

The annual sports reward program for northern pikeminnow is open on the Columbia and Snake rivers.

The Northern Pikeminnow Management Program will pay $4 to $6 for each of the salmon-eating predatory fish.

Anglers pursuing the reward must deliver pikeminnows to stations along the rivers.

The only limit is that each fish turned in to collect a reward must be at least 9 inches long.

The more fish that anglers catch, the more they are worth.

The first 100 bring $4 each. The next 300 are worth $5 each, and after you have turned in 400, the rest are worth $6 each.

Also, specially tagged pikeminnow will be worth $100 each.

Anglers have averaged several hundred dollars during a season. And the top 25 participants have made from $5,000 to $20,000 fishing for pikeminnow.

It’s not an eradication program. The idea is to cut down on the number of the highly predatory fish that ambush and feast on young salmon and steelhead migrating downriver on their way to the ocean.

Smaller fish eat fewer salmon smolts, allowing more of them to migrate to sea.

Since 1990, more than 2 million northern pikeminnow have been removed from the Columbia and Snake rivers as a result of the sport reward program.

Money for the program is provided by the Bonneville Power Administration as part of its salmon and steelhead recovery efforts.

It has been estimated by biologists that pikeminnow in the Columbia and Snake rivers consume more than 10 million juvenile salmon a year.

In 2003, about 200,000 pikeminnow were caught. If these fish had remained in the rivers throughout their lifespan of 6 to 8 years, those fish could have devoured more than 14 million young salmon.

Here’s how it works:

If you want to participate, you have to register in person at one of the registration stations or authorized signup sites every day that you fish.

You can register during times when stations are unstaffed by using the station’s self-registration box.

However, it is illegal under reward program rules to register at multiple stations on the same day.

The catch must be turned in each day, and reward vouchers are issued for qualified fish.

At registration, you have to show that you have a current fishing license and provide photo identification.

All other state fishing rules apply including closed areas, and bag and size limits for game fish taken while fishing for pikeminnow.

Mail in all reward vouchers within 30 days from the end of the season.

Pikeminnow caught in the Columbia River from the mouth upriver to the restricted zone below Priest Rapids Dam, or in the Snake River from the mouth up to the restricted zone below Hell’s Canyon Dam qualify for rewards.

That includes backwaters, sloughs, and up tributaries 400 feet from the tributary mouths.

Fish must be turned in at the station where the angler registered.

It must be on the same calendar day stamped on the registration form before that station closes for that day, and the fish must have been caught after registration for that day.

 

[Rogue 6]

For 8 years the past administration continued the exact same practice. If the dams are breached the squaw fish will just swim into the upper river(into the spawning beds). On the Rogue River the dams work as barriers for the squaw fish, but you can watch the Salmon and Steelhead all day long climbing the ladders. There are very, very few squaw fish in the upper river and the lower river is packed with them. Now the Rogue River runs took the real hit when the Lost Creek Dam was built. The runs lost alot of the best spawning grounds. I believe this dam started life under LBJ and was completed during Ford. LBJ gave it life and Carter and Clinton did not remove it?? Removing it now would kill the run for years and displace all the hippy commie libs that moved in from out of state along the river. The second part is fine by me.

 

[BuzzH]

Rogue 6,

Can you support this claim "If the dams are breached the squaw fish will just swim into the upper river(into the spawning beds)."???

I've never once seen any evidence to support anything even close to that on the Columbia/Snake/Clearwater/Salmon River Systems.

In fact, maybe a better question to ask you is, do you know anything about pikeminnows (squawfish) and their preferred habitat????