Fishery managers from Oregon and Washington set spring chinook salmon and sturgeon fishing seasons for the Columbia and Willamette rivers today during a joint state hearing.

The Columbia River spring chinook seasons are based on a forecast of 198,400 returning upriver spring chinook. Under fishery agreements with Columbia River treaty tribes, the two states adopted a 30 percent early-season run size buffer, leaving a combined harvest guideline of 7,750 fish in the sport fishery downstream of Bonneville Dam.

The sturgeon seasons adopted at the joint state hearing are based on a reduced total guideline of 17,000 harvestable fish for 2011, which represents a reduction of nearly 30 percent from the 2010 guideline and a 40 percent reduction from 2009. Retention sturgeon fishing is currently open in the Columbia River but was closed on the Willamette in an emergency action adopted earlier this year

During Tuesday’s meeting, the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife announced that it will reopen retention sturgeon fishing on the Willamette three days a week beginning Thursday, Feb. 17 and continuing until a harvest guideline of 2,550 fish is achieved.

“There has been a great deal of interest on Willamette sturgeon,” said Williams, who announced the Oregon action after the joint state hearing. “We saw a great deal of effort last fall on the Willamette that amounted to over 500 fish caught in three days. We expect the fishery to be good when it reopens on the 17th.”

It all started in 2005 when a small group of fisherman joined together to steer their passion for fishing to a cause that would help feed the hungry.

By Isaac Miller for YakAngler

By  Isaac Miller for YakAngler

The second part of "How to Kayak Fish the Oregon Coast" brings us to Depoe Bay. DB, as the locals call it, is a small hole cut out of the cliffs, making it the world's smallest navigable harbor. Because DB is so small, and there's no river feeding into the harbor, it's easy to drop in a kayak at the $2 boat launch, head through the 50' x 300' "hole" and find yourself in the Pacific Ocean without even thinking of dealing with a surf launch. But then the question hits you – How do I fish this place?

By  Isaac Miller for YakAngler

Let me introduce you to the Oregon Coast. This had begun as a tutorial on a specific fishing area, but has quickly expanded. This first part is focusing on the gear that we use here in the PacNW when bottom fishing on the coast. We're going to be targeting Rockfish, Lingcod, Cabezon and Greenling. Bottom fishing on the Oregon Coast is an excellent, often fast paced fishery. So let's get started with the tackle.

Steelhead are rainbow trout that have a life cycle that takes them from our rivers and out into the ocean, some of them go as far as Japan, and then back to our rivers.  Many of them are raised in our state hatcheries on many of our rivers.

These fish are put into our rivers for us to catch but a lot of times they don’t all get caught.  And since the hatchery doesn’t use all the fish that come back the always end up with some extra steelhead.

You may ask what they do with them.  They recycle!