Our only salvation is our springer run. They well most likely screw that up before long too.
Well, in my, mostly useless, opinion......Oregon is in the last third or so of screwing up the Willamette springer run completely. I moved to PDX in 1983, about that time there was a guy that landed a 55# springer under the Gladstone Bridge on the Clack. The early component of the Willamette springer run was BIG fish, used to see a "First" catch last of December and usually by the middle of January for sure. 20+ pound fish were the norm and 30+ wasn't uncommon. For YEARS back then they were allowing the gill netters to fish in February. Guess what? That is when the largest of the run came in! You do the math! I don't know what the % of hatchery fish there were at that time, but I gotta guess that those "Hog" early springers were wild fish. You just don't see those fish anymore, well, maybe a hand full, if that, of fish close to 30# each year.The only thing that has put a halt to the early gill netting is the damage they do to the wild steelhead, so they fish later now rather than use up their quota of wild steelhead and have to stop. The early part of the run still has the larger fish, 16#-22# if your lucky, but once you get into the peak of the run it can be as bad as nothing but 12# fish and smaller.
The other thing you'll notice if you fish the Willamette spring run......During the time the smolts are outgoing from the Willamette, the entire Willamette from Clackamette Park is a lake. The mandated spring spill from the Columbia dams has the Willamette backed up, like a lake. The spill on the Columbia to [help] flush smolts to the ocean basically negates any flow on the Willamette. Once the water hits 50+ degrees the small mouth bass get active. So you not only have lack of flow, you also have a predator fish just waking up from the winter doldrums, damned hungry, and needing to feed up in preparation to their spawn. They have also cut back on hatchery plant over the years, and just recently MOVED a good portion of the Willamette hatchery plants to Astoria/Youngs Bay, and some of the "Terminal Fisheries" [places to gill net where they are not likely to get native salmon]. That leave less spring salmon returning to the mouth of the Willamette.
Strike three! The Willamette is CHOKED with fisherman from Meldrum Bar up to the deadline below the falls for a couple of months once the run gets going, late March to mid May or so. The seals/sea lions are at numbers, well seals anyway, that are at record highs. They have lost their fear of man. There was a guy that almost got pulled over the side of his boat when a fur bag took a hold of a salmon that was in his net, before he could get it in the boat! The seals/sea lions congregate in the same areas the fishermen do. I don't fish the area myself, way too many idiots and arses. I've heard that at times seals/sea lions are getting close to half the fish hooked at times. The fur bags have learned to just wait, they don't even need to chase a salmon down, just wait for the fishermen to hook one for them and then steal it. The same kind of thing happens in the hog lines in the Columbia, seals just hangin' out below a line of boats waiting for the commotion of a "Fish On!" to signal a meal is being served. The supposed method to keep a fish from being stolen is to stay in a sitting position, don't hoot or holler, don't show a net, and reel fast as you can before the fur bag can steal you prize. Good times!
I guess there's a strike four too if you consider the "Islands" that have been constructed by The Army Corps of Engineers from dredge spoils, near the mouth of the Columbia, that have thousands of fish eating diving birds nesting on them that weren't there 50 years ago. Of course we are not allowed to mess with the birds, or the fur bags due to the PETA types!
Hope that wasn't too hard to read. I'm just a bit bitter of the way fisheries have gone [away] here in Oregon, while the prices have gone up for everything to do with fishing!
Mike