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Daily steelhead haul increased By MARK FREEMAN Oregon sport-anglers will need to carry larger coolers and make more room in their freezers now that they can keep an extra hatchery steelhead during their fishing trips this winter and spring. State fish managers have increased from two to three the number of hatchery steelhead anglers can keep daily during fishing trips in all Oregon steelhead rivers beginning today. The Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission unanimously approved the rule change Friday during its meeting in Portland. The new rule is aimed at getting sport-anglers' hands on a larger share of this year's big returns of hatchery steelhead. "These fish are raised for sportsmen," said Jim Broman of Jim's Bait and Tackle shop in Grants Pass. "If the sport-fishermen can take more of these fish home, then it's good for everyone." The change, which follows similar ones written last fall for hatchery coho salmon, is an Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife response to a glut of hatchery winter steelhead forecast statewide. The rule will run through July 11, ODFW spokeswoman Anne Pressentin Young said. In May, agency biologists will review estimates of the summer steelhead returns forecast to Oregon hatcheries before deciding whether to make the limit of three hatchery fish a day permanent for all of 2002, she said. The rules place a cap at three fish. On streams such as the Umpqua and Rogue, where anglers can at times keep a wild steelhead, the rule will mean that those who legally keep a wild steelhead can then keep just two hatchery fish. A daily bag limit of three adipose fin-clipped steelhead is already in effect for all of 2002 for steelhead streams in northeastern Oregon. Also, Washington has enacted emergency regulations switching to a three-fish limit on lower Columbia River tributaries. Reach reporter Mark Freeman at 776-4470, or e-mail [email protected] Mail Tribune Home | Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & Co., Inc. | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright � 2001 Mail Tribune, Inc.