Decision to allow fishing for wild coho salmon is welcome step.

Byline: INSIDE THE OUTDOORS By Mike Stahlberg The Register-Guard

At first blush, the decision by federal fisheries managers to allow fishing for wild coho salmon in Siltcoos and Tahkenitch lakes came too late to do much good. The run is almost over.

Eventually, however, the new management plan for the Florence-area lakes should be significant for two reasons.

One is that it will provide additional fishing opportunities in future years.

The other is that the plan can serve as a model for making the transition from providing total protection for a wild salmon population to providing a closely monitored harvest that will vary as local conditions change.

NOAA Fisheries (formerly known as the National Marine Fisheries Service) last week approved a Fisheries Management and Evaluation Plan (FMEP) that allows anglers to target wild coho salmon in the two lakes.

That ruling cleared the way for the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife to open Siltcoos and Tahkenitch to the harvest of coho, effective last Thursday. It was the first time since 1993 - when the crash of coastal coho populations scuttled ocean salmon fishing - that anglers could legally fish for wild coastal coho salmon in Oregon. The new in-lake season ends Dec. 31.

The ODFW had hoped to open the lakes two months earlier - just as several thousand coho began passing through Siltcoos or Tahkenitch to spawning gravels in tributary streams. The runs begin in October and peak in November. But the federal process took so long that few coho will be harvested in 2003.

That's unfortunate, but the significance of the multiyear plan should become apparent when the 2004 run peaks.

The new plan is "the first of its kind" involving the harvest of a federally protected salmon species, NOAA Fisheries said in a news release announcing its decision. Oregon coastal coho salmon were listed under the federal Endangered Species Act in 1998.

"We are pleased that public fishing will be possible without deterring salmon recovery under this new plan," said Rob Jones, of NOAA Fisheries' new Salmon Recovery Division.

"The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife deserves a great deal of credit for developing" the new management plan, Jones said.

Actually, much of the credit should go to Bob Buckman, the ODFW's district fish biologist in Newport. He spearheaded the proposal, and assembled the evidence needed to convince the federal agencies that the coho populations in the Siltcoos and Tahkenitch basins would not be harmed by a limited sport fishery.

In fact, wild coho populations in the watershed surrounding the two lakes have been surprisingly immune from problems that decimated populations in other coastal basins. Spawning densities in the Siltcoos and Tahkenitch basins "exceeded the number needed to support long-term viable populations in nine of the last 10 years," according to ODFW reports.

Last fall, 8,240 spawning coho returned to Siltcoos and Tahkenitch. That's about 2,750 more salmon than biologists estimate are needed "to maintain healthy future generations."

Not all the surplus will be harvested. Based on historical data, sport anglers in the two lakes caught about 1,000 fish annually with no restrictions in place.

The new plan provides for a harvest quota. This year's was set at 300 fish for Siltcoos Lake and 200 for Tahkenitch. Quotas in future years will likely vary with ocean conditions and projected run sizes.

The plan allows individual anglers to harvest one "unmarked" (i.e., no hatchery fin clip) adult coho salmon plus one unmarked jack coho salmon per day from either Siltcoos or Tahkenitch. The season bag limit from the two lakes is five adult coho.

Such a small local fishery may not be a huge step on the road to salmon recovery, but it's a welcome first step.

Mike Stahlberg can be reached at [e-mail].