|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
With the new year, many of us start planning our fishing trips, and trying to make sense of the seasons can be a real challenge. The rule book doesn’t come out until June, so in the meantime we rely on email updates, the Fish Washington app, and now the WDFW website, where we can buy licenses and fill out catch record cards online. All of this makes life a lot easier for anglers trying to stay legal and organized.
Salmon and fishing seasons in Okanogan County are set through a layered process that starts with big-picture conservation and run forecasts, then gets narrowed down through tribal–state negotiations and finally into specific reaches like the Brewster Pool via WDFW’s rules and emergency updates.
For our stretch of the Upper Columbia, the same coastwide “North of Falcon” and Pacific Fishery Management Council processes drive the numbers, and WDFW then turns those into the exact dates, limits, and species you see each summer.
Big-picture process
- Each winter, biologists forecast how many Chinook, sockeye, coho, and steelhead will return to the Columbia and its tributaries, using ocean indicators, previous returns, and in-river monitoring.
- Those forecasts set the ceiling for how many fish can be harvested while still meeting escapement and ESA recovery goals for weak stocks.
North of Falcon and PFMC
- The North of Falcon process covers salmon fisheries from Cape Falcon (north Oregon coast) up through the Columbia River and inland Washington, including your area.
- In March–April, state (WDFW), tribal co-managers, and federal managers work alongside the Pacific Fishery Management Council, which sets ocean seasons 3–200 miles offshore; inside-river seasons must fit within that overall harvest picture.
Role of tribes and WDFW
- Columbia River and Upper Columbia seasons are co-managed between treaty tribes and WDFW, so allocations and openings are negotiated to balance tribal and non-tribal fisheries while meeting conservation targets.
- Policy frameworks (like the North of Falcon policy) tell WDFW staff how to prioritize conservation, sharing, and in-season management when they craft seasons and consider public input. They do have meetings around the state and Oregon. I attended the one in Wenatchee last year and it was very informative, not what I wanted to hear unfortunately, but what they had planned for the year. At this point they are not looking for public input, it is just to inform us of their goals.
How this shows up in Okanogan County
- Once the overall Columbia harvest levels and time windows are set, WDFW breaks them down by river reach in the Sport Fishing Rules and Columbia Basin special rules, including the Brewster Pool and the Okanogan/Columbia confluence area.
- Our local Chinook and sockeye openers, closures, gear rules, and bag limits are then fine-tuned with in-season counts at dams and updated run-size estimates, which is why retention can change mid-summer via emergency regulations.
Where to see “the decision” for your area
- The annual statewide rules pamphlet and online “Sport Fishing Rules” list the base seasons for Upper Columbia and Okanogan waters; this is the starting point for planning.
- Emergency rules and news releases from WDFW (often shared on their site and social channels) announce added Chinook days, sockeye limits, or early closures in specific stretches like the Upper Columbia between Chief Joe and Wells, which are critical for events such as the annual Brewster Salmon Derby. At this time the Wenatchee Salmon Derby that CCA runs each year in July has been cancelled due to early predictions of a little larger run of Kings than last year, but probably not enough for a full season of Chinook Salmon. We have decided we will go forward with the Brewster Salmon Derby and if the Kings don’t show up we are prepared to make it a Sockeye Derby. Depending on what the season allows.
Brewster Bait and Tackle runs the Brewster Derby and have all the tackle and bait needed to have a very successful season.
Until next time
Tight Lines
Mike Mauk
