WDFW Works with Upper Columbia River Communities to Highlight Recreation Opportunities in the Okanogan Recreational opportunities abound through the fall and winter in the Okanogan region, and leaders from Brewster, Bridgeport and Pateros are promoting them in partnership with the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife.
In the aftermath of last summer’s Carlton Complex wildfire, leaders from WDFW and the three neighboring towns—located along the upper Columbia River north of Wenatchee—agreed to work together to counter the tourism slowdown that followed news reports of the fire.
“Outdoor recreation is a vital part of the north central Washington economy,” said Jim Brown, WDFW’s regional director. “We are very pleased to support these communities’ efforts to bring tourists back to the area.”
The initiative complements a marketing campaign to promote tourism throughout Okanogan County that began in mid-September. That effort, funded by a $150,000 grant from Gov. Jay Inslee’s strategic reserve account, is being coordinated by the Economic Alliance of Okanogan County.
Brown said WDFW and the three cities are reinforcing the tourism messages through news releases, social media posts, and other online content. Efforts will include promotions and advertising designed to complement the “Open for Adventure” theme used in the state-funded marketing initiative.
The campaign is also receiving support from Dave Graybill, the “Fishin’ Magician,” whose radio and newspaper reports highlight fishing opportunities throughout central Washington, and from John Kruse, whose “Northwestern Outdoors Radio” show is carried on more than 50 stations in Washington, Idaho, Oregon, and Montana.
Sabrina O’Connell, treasurer of the Brewster Chamber of Commerce, said people who visit Okanogan Country only in the summer are missing some memorable experiences.
“Brewster is famous for our summer sockeye run, but fishing and hunting are great family activities throughout the fall and winter,” she said. “Our family often fishes for steelhead right through the winter.”
North central Washington is a huge area, and most of it was untouched by fire, said Virgil Yancey of Yancey’s Pateros Hardware, who sells fishing and hunting licenses and provides visitors with wide-ranging information about recreation opportunities. “Fall and winter offer a great variety of hunting, fishing and wildlife viewing,” he said. “There’s something for everyone in this part of the state.”
Judy Brown, Bridgeport city clerk/treasurer, said her Douglas County community, just downstream from Chief Joseph Dam, draws visitors from throughout the Northwest. “This is a great time to visit us,” she said, adding that the city-owned RV campground is ideal for those who want to be close to the Columbia River.
Jim Brown of WDFW said the department promotes recreation-related tourism throughout the state and works closely with the Washington Tourism Alliance and local visitor information centers. The department’s recent efforts have focused on recreational razor clamming on the Washington coast and seasonal statewide promotions, such as the Fall Into Fishing campaign. Last year, the department launched the “Great Getaways” website http://wdfw.wa.gov/fishing/vacation/ to promote family-oriented fishing vacations throughout the state.
“Promoting outdoor recreation is an important part of WDFW’s mission, so focusing on opportunities in north central Washington made especially good sense in the wake of last summer’s wildfires,” he said.
Extensive information about fall and winter recreation opportunities in the region is available from the Okanogan County Tourism Council at http://www.okanogancountry.com requirements and regulations is available from the WDFW at http://wdfw.wa.gov. JD: If you haven’t experienced what the upper Columbia River and the Okanogan region has to offer, do your best to spend some time there as soon as you can. It’s one of the most beautiful places on earth and the fishing can be downright spectacular. Some of the Largest Fish Anglers Will See All Year Have Been Released Into Two Popular Willamette Valley Fishing Holes ODFW’s Roaring River hatchery released 90 steelhead-sized rainbow trout into both Junction City Pond and St. Louis Pond #6. In addition to the brood stock, Junction City Pond will also receive 50 hatchery steelhead.
Weighing in at 8-15 pounds apiece, “brooders” are 3- and 4-year-old trout used to produce the eggs necessary to sustain the hatchery trout program. At age four they reach what hatchery managers consider the point of diminishing returns. So they are removed from the hatchery system and taken to local fishing holes to make room for the next generation of brood stock.
This year brood stock will be released at several locations across the Willamette Valley. In addition to Junction City and St. Louis ponds, brood trout releases are planned at Canby Pond, EE Wilson Pond, Henry Hagg Lake, Mt. Hood Pond, Sheridan Pond, Timber Linn Lake, Waverly Lake, Walling Pond, and Walter Wirth Lake.
These are big, beautiful fish that are going to generate a lot of smiles,” said Elise Kelley, ODFW fish biologist in Corvallis. “Our brood-stock stocking program is the highlight of the year for a lot of our anglers.”
The exact dates of the releases are difficult to pinpoint in advance because it depends on when the fish have finished spawning at the hatchery. After they’ve spawned, the fish are distributed to provide opportunity to anglers in as many communities as possible throughout the Willamette Valley.
The releases will be announced in ODFW’s Willamette Zone weekly recreation report, published on Wednesdays, to give everybody an equal chance to get out and catch one of these large fish. The Willamette Zone Recreation Report is available at ODFW’s website at http://www.dfw.state.or.us/RR/willamette/index.asp.
ODFW releases more than 6 million legal-size or larger trout every year in more than 300 locations around the state. JD: What could be more fun for fishermen with a youngster getting into fishing than lakes full of fat trout and big steelhead? What a great opportunity for fishermen in the Willamette Valley! Scientists Up Their Ability to Track Salmon Through DNA “Fin-Printing” A partnership between the University of Washington and Alaska Department of Fish and Game has yielded a major breakthrough in DNA “fin-printing” last spring, improving the ability to conserve diminishing stocks of chinook salmon. Implementing the new technique will allow scientists and managers to track specific stocks, helping to ensure that no specific stock is overharvested. The results have been published in the journals Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences and Evolutionary Applications.
This discovery is timely in that some stocks of chinook from California to Washington are listed as threatened or endangered, and chinook salmon in western Alaska have experienced precipitous declines during the past decade. The declines in western Alaska triggered painful restrictions to commercial and subsistence fisheries producing social and economic hardship throughout the region. Increasing the tools available to better manage stocks may help avoid some of these hardships in the future.
Prior to this study, chinook salmon from western Alaska had been difficult to distinguish from one another using DNA because they are closely related. “Sometimes you just have to swing a bigger hammer to solve a problem like this,” said Dr. James Seeb, who led the University of Washington team that solved this problem. They employed innovative genetic techniques that were previously unavailable to screen billions of DNA sequences to discover better markers to help distinguish the various stocks. Scientists have tested these new markers and found they can now distinguish three major groups of fish from western Alaska, a huge improvement that will aid efforts to understand declines in some populations.
Alaska has used DNA markers to track specific salmon stocks and estimate harvests with great success. “This is CSI on steroids,” said Bill Templin, director of the Alaska program, referring to the popular television drama. “Each year we analyze 10,000s of fish, using DNA markers, to identify the origins of migrating salmon.” These data provide managers with the ability to manage fisheries that harvest multiple stocks while ensuring that no stock is harvested too heavily. These same techniques are also used to identify international harvest of Washington, Oregon, British Columbia, and Alaska stocks as a part of the Pacific Salmon Treaty process.
In response to the recent declines in Alaska, Alaska Department of Fish and Game developed the Chinook Salmon Research Initiative, a program developed to address the decline in salmon. Its aim is to better understand productivity and abundance trends of specific stocks. A major tool of the research plan involves ADF&G Commercial Fisheries Press Release: Scientists up their ability to track salmon using DNA to track indicator stocks of chinook salmon across their various life history stages. The results reported here provide a huge improvement in DNA technology that will help the Initiative efforts to understand declines in some populations.
The team is building on this success and continuing efforts to increase resolution of stock structure. Scientists from Russia and Japan are collaborating as well, providing samples of chinook salmon collected from the eastern Pacific Ocean and Bering Sea. Through these efforts, Alaska will be better able to trace and monitor salmon stocks through their oceanic migrations and determine the contribution of stocks caught unintentionally in distant fisheries.
This work was initiated by a $4.1 million grant from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation. Substantial additional funds were provided by the State of Alaska, Alaska Sustainable Salmon Fund, and NOAA Sea Grant. JD: If fin-printing is someday used to show how many of the lower 48’s chinook get killed off the Gulf of Alaska, it might give the lobbyists a foothold to finally get the harvest reduced on our fish before they have a chance to make it home.