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Click Here 41 °F Forecast | Road Cams Saturday, January 31, 2004 Today's News | Classifieds | Autos | Homes | Jobs | Tempo | Health | Community | Home Delivery SECTIONS Home Page Local News Sports Business Obituaries Life Opinion - Politics AP News Weather Classified Archives Site Map EXTRA Newspaper in Education Personals Movie Times TV Times E The People CLASSIFIEDS Find a Car Find a Home Find a Job Find a Rental Place an ad eSouthernOregon Automotive Communities Entertainment Publications Recreation Calendar CUSTOMER SERVICE Frequent Questions Advertising Information Home Delivery Employment Contact Us Media Kit Network Affiliate Email Story to a Friend January 22, 2004 Botched harvest card causes rift By MARK FREEMAN Mail Tribune Look at your new salmon-steelhead tag and notice something different? Well, you should have, but you won’t. And that’s causing a rift in how anglers will be required to help protect wild Rogue River spring chinook salmon in 2004. The 2004 harvest tag does not include a way to record anglers’ catches of wild spring chinook, making the Rogue’s new annual limit of three wild spring chinook unenforceable in the eyes of state biologists. The daily limit of one wild spring chinook remains intact as part of the new rule, but the annual limit meant to curb over-harvest of the rare wild springer disappears from what biologists expect for the new rule’s inaugural season. Advertisement "It was an oversight on our part," says Russ Stauff, the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife biologist who crafted the new rule. "You can’t look at the tag and prove someone kept more than three. So, in essence, we have a one-a-day bag limit." Stauff may not see the three-fish season limit. But Oregon State Police Lt. Steve Ross sees it, plain as day, in the regulations booklet. And what’s a law in the booklet is a law enforced on the river, regardless of how difficult the ODFW makes it for troopers to make their cases. "It’s going to be very difficult, but we’re under an obligation by law to enforce it," Ross says. "So we’ll make every effort to fulfill our obligation." The tag dilemma is the latest twist to the saga of wild spring chinook angling on the Rogue. When Lost Creek dam first tamed the Rogue in 1977, it set in motion a series of alterations that has negatively affected the river’s true early-run spring chinook more than any other salmon species here. Placement of the dam blocked access to about a third of the spring chinook’s spawning grounds. The lake created by the dam generates warmer-than-natural winter water flows, altering the time when spring chinook eggs hatch in the river’s main stem. And an explosion of fall chinook salmon helped by higher-than-natural summer flows have pushed themselves into spring chinook territory. Other factors include degraded spawning habitat and pressure from legal and illegal angling. The result is that true early-run wild springers have declined to about 10 percent of their historic numbers. One of the most popular fisheries in Oregon, the Rogue's spring chinook season runs April through July in the upper Rogue upstream of Gold Ray Dam. The fishery is buoyed by more than 1.6 million hatchery-raised, and fin-clipped spring chinook released into the upper Rogue. But the wild and hatchery fish prove tough to catch and their flesh so tasty that volunteer catch-and-release fishing for wild spring chinook is rare. The ODFW is about to create a spring chinook management plan for the Rogue. In the interim, Stauff sought and received a one-year rule change to alter the bag limit on wild springers. The new limit, adopted in August by the Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission, is up to one wild chinook a day and up to three a year. The old limit was two adult chinook a day and up to 20 wild chinook a year. The rule change requires an alteration of anglers’ salmon-steelhead harvest card. The card lists codes for chinook, coho, hatchery steelhead and wild steelhead. The agency planned to add codes for wild coho and wild chinook harvest for 2004, Stauff says, but the change was forgotten. "The tag just says chinook, not hatchery chinook and wild chinook," Stauff says. "By the time we realized there was a problem, it was too late." Too late to change, and too late to enforce, Stauff says. The one wild chinook rule is enough for now, he says. "Socially, that’s acceptable," Stauff says. But it’s not acceptable to Ross. "This is all much to our dismay," Ross says. "We’re still in a position where we have to enforce it, but we’ll have to be fairly liberal." If the tag had been changed to allow for logging of wild spring chinook, Ross’ troops simply could check tags to ensure anglers don’t exceed the annual limit. Without the altered tag, enforcement will be difficult but not impossible. Ross says fish and wildlife troopers likely will keep log books on specific anglers’ catches. "We’ll be able to tell day to day, week to week, who’s catching what," Ross says. If they witness someone who has kept more than three wild spring chinook this season, the troopers can write tickets with $299 bails. Other cases could be made if anglers turn in violators and are willing to testify against them in court, Ross says. Troopers could even work a case to a point where they can get a search warrant to see how many fin-clipped carcasses are in someone’s freezer, he says. "Just like everything else, that will be people who want to push the envelope." Ross says. Already, word of the botched harvest card has circulated, and some people have said aloud that they don’t plan on biding by the three-fish annual limit. "We already have a list of people we have to watch out for because they have indicated that they’re not going to follow the rules," Ross says. Reach reporter Mark Freeman at 776-4470, or e-mail [email protected] Mail Tribune Home Local News | Sports | Business | Obituaries | Life Opinion - Politics | AP News | Archives | Site Map E Southern Oregon | Classified Copyright © 1997-2004 Mail Tribune. All rights reserved. Privacy Policy | Terms & Conditions Website Feedback 3 WEEKS FREE! ADVERTISERS A D V E R T I S E R S RESOURCES Oregon Road Conditions & Cams SPECIAL SECTIONS Auto Finder Job Finder Home Finder Joy Magazine Homelife Magazine Tempo Readers' Choice Real Estate Showcase Since We Asked Food for Thought Wellness Connection Outdoor Journal Moving to Southern Oregon? Volunteer Opportunities Prime Times