SPRING SALMON SEASON IS SET!

The 2019 spring chinook fishing zone in the lower Columbia River will be reduced by more than half, starting March 1.

Oregon and Washington officials met in Portland Wednesday and decided to limit recreational fishing to an area from Warrior Rock, on Sauvie Island, upriver to deadlines below Bonneville Dam (or to Beacon Rock for those fishing from boats).

The lower Columbia remains open through the end of February restrictions begin March 1 and are in effect through April 10, when the river below Bonneville is scheduled to close. Upriver from Bonneville, angling in the usual areas is scheduled from April 1 through May 5.

The bag limits in both areas will be two hatchery salmon or steelhead per day, but only one can be a chinook salmon.

Washington biologists will close both the Cowlitz and Lewis rivers to salmon retention March 1, but will leave hatchery steelhead fishing open.

In Oregon, fishing will be allowed seven days per week on the Willamette, Clackamas and Sandy rivers.