HOOK AND FUR By Bob Brown The opening of the lowland lake fishing season which starts April 25 is the start of Washington's biggest outdoor event. Although many waterways are open year-round, the fourth Saturday in April marks the traditional start of the lowland lake fishing season. Stocked with millions of fish for a six-month season, thousands of anglers are expected to turn out for the big day. To prepare, hatchery crews have been stocking lakes on both sides of the Cascades with nearly 16 million trout and kokanee. Those fish include 2.5 million catchable trout, 115,000 jumbo trout weighing better than ten pounds a piece and approximately 50,000 triploid trout averaging 1.5 pounds apiece. There are also millions of smaller trout stocked last year that are now of catchable size. Fish-stocking details, by county and lake, are available in the annual stocking plan on the department's website. Anglers should take note not to recycle the 2014-15 fishing pamphlet. Unlike past years, the current fishing rules pamphlet will remain valid through June 30. -á Lawsuit over cormorants
The Audubon Society of Portland plans to sue the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to prevent it from putting a plan in place to reduce the population of double-crested cormorants at East Sand Island in the lower Columbia River estuary. In its Columbia River Estuary Cormorants: Environmental Impact Statement, the EIS lays out the Corps plan to reduce the lower Columbia population of the water bird by 56 percent over four years. To reduce the cormorant population the Corps planned to use two lethal methods: shooting and suffocation of growing embryos inside egg shells by egg oiling. It was estimated the cormorant population of East Sand Island consumed at least 74 million juvenile salmon from 2010-2013, equaling a loss of 740,000 returning adult salmon and steelhead according to the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission. In the Columbia News Bulletin March 27, Bob Sallinger, Audubon Society of Portland's conservation director, said, "The Corps misses the mark on the real causes of salmon decline for which they bear primary responsibility. Rather than addressing the primary cause of salmon decline, the manner in which the Corps operates the Columbia River Hydropower System, the Corps has instead decided to scapegoat wild birds and pursue a slaughter of historic proportions. Sadly this will do little or nothing to protect wild salmon, but it will put double-crested cormorant populations in real jeopardy.GÇ¥-á Sallinger added that of the more than 150,000 comments the Corps received regarding its proposed reduction plan, 145,000 of the comments were in opposition to the plan. The Audubon Society of Portland which has 15,000 members throughout Oregon says the reduction in the cormorant population proposed by the Corps would amount to 15 percent of the entire West Coast population that ranges north to British Columbia, south to the U.S. - Mexican border, and east to the Rocky Mountains.
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