NEWPORT, Ore.—The ocean salmon recreational fishery between Leadbetter Point, Wash., and Cape Falcon, Ore. will close effective 2:00 p.m. on Sunday, Aug. 17, 2008 when the coho quota for the season is expected to be reached. This closure includes all salmon and steelhead in the ocean area off the Columbia River, but does not affect any seasons upstream from Buoy 10 inside the Columbia River.

“The season opened on June 29 for adipose fin-clipped coho and had progressed at a slow pace until the last couple of weeks when more people realized that there salmon out there to catch,” said Eric Schindler, supervising biologist for the ODFW Marine Resources program.

“Considering the limitations this year with the low coho stock size and a very limited quota, we had a good season,” Schindler said. “The nice size of the coho has also put smiles on a lot of anglers’ faces. We have weighed in numerous coho over 12 pounds this season, and have seen a few coho pushing the 20-pound mark.”

The quota of 10,180 coho was met on Thursday, Aug. 14, but a trade of chinook and coho between the sport and the commercial troll fisheries gave NOAA Fisheries enough leeway to allow for half a day of fishing on Sunday. The commercial troll fishery traded 1,000 of their coho quota to the recreational fishery in exchange for 500 chinook from the recreational fishery.

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