The run forecast has been reduced by 90,000 fish so both the Ringold and the Snake salmon fisheries will close effective the 12th. Fishing below McNary closed today (10th) with no extension even though the run is over 2 weeks late.

The commercials and west side sports absolutely POUNDED the fish below Bonneville based on yet another bad run forecast. Now we, and more importantly the resource, are screwed When will they learn to verify the run size at Bonneville before letting the pigs empty the trough?

Ringold being closed doesn't make any scientific sense. It's a bank fishery only and very few wild fish are caught. Impact on wild fish from the fishery at Ringold is practically nil.

Ringold closing is a mystery; especially since they've left the Yak open (so far...) I hope that once RInglod gets their egg harvest needs that they open it back up.

I can't figure out why our fisheries managers don't apply freshman statistics to their predictions and start adding error bars to the pre-season forecasts. How hard could it be to then manage to the more conservative end of the prediction range and reopen if the run tracks at or above predictions? Very foolish science, conservation, and budgeting...

I'm still keeping my fingers crossed for a late season surge - much like 2006 where we saw some 7K+ counts at Bonny in mid-May. A guy can hope, can't he? I just really glad I spent last week chasin' springers rather than waiting another week and hitting 'em up on the Snake.

It's my understanding that Ringold doesn't harvest any eggs. The fry for the Spring Chinook program comes from the hatchery at Drano.

The ostensible reason given for closing Ringold (as well as the other closures) is that the allowable impact on wild stocks from estimated mortality resulting from catch and release of wild fish has been reached, based on the reduced estimate of run size.

It doesn't make any sense to close Ringold for that reason. Ringold is a terminal bank fishery for hatchery fish. It's not like the Columbia River boat fisheries over mixed stocks. Wild fish heading upstream by Ringold just zip on through,mostly out of casting range of the bank. There is negligible impact on wild fish from the Ringold fishery because almost no wild fish are caught!