Fall coastal salmon management

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Fall Coastal Salmon Management‌

The Fish and Wildlife Commission adopted ODFW staff proposals for coastal Chinook and coho fisheries at its June 14 meeting. Regulations for coastal fall Chinook fisheries are now posted at the SW Zone and NW Zone.‌

Approval from NMFS is required to conduct wild coho fisheries. Once approved, these regulations will also be posted to the NW and SW zones regulation updates.‌

Adopted 2024 regulations for harvest of wild fall Chinook‌ Unless indicated below, regulations remain as shown in the 2024 Oregon Sport Fishing Regulations. Season limits are applied at the river/bay scale, not aggregated across basins; standard salmon/steelhead 2 per day and 20 per year limits apply as indicated in NW and SW Zone regulations. Limit changes apply to wild adult Chinook only – regulations for harvest of steelhead, hatchery salmon, and Chinook jacks (wild or hatchery) remain unchanged unless otherwise indicated.

2024 wild coho seasons (Adopted by Commission, NFMS approval also required. Regulations will be posted at MyODFW.com after NFMS approval; decision expected in July.) Coastwide season limit is 5 wild adult coho across all open areas in NW and SW zone, regardless of where they are harvested. ‌‌ Harvest of wild jack coho allowed only in areas and dates open for wild adult coho; no season limit on wild jack coho, daily wild jack coho bag limit is 1 per day.‌‌ All other areas and dates remain closed to harvest of wild coho (adult or jack).‌‌

Background‌‌

Wild Chinook‌‌

Management of fisheries for wild fall Chinook in Oregon coastal rivers is guided by the Coastal Multi-Species Conservation and Management Plan (CMP) for rivers from the Elk River northward and the Rogue Fall Chinook Conservation Plan (RFCCP) for rivers south of the Elk River. ‌‌‌

The CMP established a tiered sliding scale approach for managing Chinook fisheries. Based upon the prior year's return and the current year's forecast, daily and seasonal bag limits may be reduced or increased for a set of rivers within the same geographic area—or fishing may be closed entirely at a certain critical threshold. Likewise, the RFCCP specifies management objectives and regulatory measures based on abundance though some provisions differ from the CMP. ‌‌‌

The Plans recognized that adaptive management would be necessary due to unavoidable uncertainty. In recent years, rapid climate and ocean change is undermining assumptions and increasing forecast uncertainty for wild Chinook. Populations on neighboring rivers, despite similar freshwater and marine conditions, are performing substantially differently in some cases. Spawner abundance has shown large variables, with 11 of 14 populations at or below the critical threshold for one or more years since the CMP was adopted. Finally, a generally increasing freshwater harvest rate in some rivers (vs. generally decreasing ocean harvest rate) may indicate increasing vulnerability to harvest. ‌‌‌

Due to these factors, more conservative management and restrictive bag limits and seasons than what the Plans original sliding scales called for will be necessary during some years, including in 2023 and 2024.‌‌‌

Wild coho‌‌

The 2024 forecasted ocean abundance of Oregon coast natural coho is 233,000, up from 185,000 last year. Harvest fisheries on healthy populations of wild coho will be proposed again in 2024. The proposed fisheries are precautionary in nature but provide opportunity in rivers that traditionally have limited opportunity for harvest of coho. ‌‌‌

Note that annual approval from NMFS is required to conduct these fisheries so final wild coho regulations will not be posted on ODFW's website until July or later. ‌‌‌

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