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SIUSLAW NEWS ❚ WEDNESDAY, APRIL 26, 2017
OFWC adopts new fishing, hunting regulations
SALEM — The Oregon Fish
and Wildlife Commission
(OFWC) met Monday in
Klamath Falls, where Oregon
Department of Fish and
Wildlife staff presented a Draft
Revised Wolf Management
Plan. Nearly 40 people testified
about the draft plan. A second
public meeting about the plan
has been scheduled for May 19
at the Portland Airport
Embassy Suites.
The Commission set the
2017 Pacific halibut and ocean
salmon and Pacific halibut sea-
sons for Oregon’s territorial
waters within three nautical
miles of shore by adopting staff
proposals.
Due to the critically low
forecast for Klamath fall
Chinook, ocean Chinook fish-
eries off Oregon south of Cape
Falcon have been sharply cur-
tailed with no commercial troll
seasons allowed south of
Florence this year.
Recreational fisheries from
Cape Falcon to Humbug Mt.
harvest far fewer Chinook and
will have a regular Chinook
season structure, but coho sea-
sons will be limited due to poor
forecasts for several key popu-
lations.
The area south of Humbug
Mt. will be closed for all ocean
salmon fishing with the excep-
tion of the state waters fall
Chinook season at Brookings.
The Commission also adopt-
ed regulations for Pacific hal-
ibut fishing in 2017. The total
2017 catch limit will be
256,757 pounds, a 17 percent
increase from 2016. There are
several changes to the 2017
regulations that affect the sport
fisheries:
• For all Oregon subareas,
in-season modifications to the
sport halibut seasons can now
be considered based on yellow-
eye rockfish impacts.
• Descending devices will be
mandatory for sport fishing of
Pacific Halibut to reduce
impacts to yelloweye rockfish
(similar to what was adopted
for the bottomfish fishery in
December 2016).
• For the Central Coast sub-
area nearshore fishery (shore-
ward of the 40 fathom line),
retention of other species of
flatfish when fishing outside of
the seasonal bottomfish depth
restriction will be allowed.
This will allow for some
additional opportunities and
aligns the nearshore and all-
depth fishery regulations.
• For the Central Coast sub-
area all-depth fishery, retention
of bottomfish species is
allowed if the sport bottomfish
fishery is also open to all
depths.
This will allow anglers to
retain some additional species
when both fisheries are open to
all depth, with minimal poten-
tial additional impacts to yel-
loweye rockfish.
In other business, the
Commission:
• Adopted 2017-18 Game
Bird Season Regulations. There
are just a few changes from last
year’s regulations including:
Daily bag limit for pintails
reduced to one as mandated by
USFWS frameworks; NW
Permit Goose Zone shooting
hours will begin 15 minutes
earlier; edible portions for
game birds now defined as
being at minimum the breast
for all game birds; open dates
for lands east of Foothill Rd on
Ladd Marsh Wildlife Area are
changed (so open Wednesday,
Saturday, Sunday, federal holi-
days Aug.1-Jan. 31) to increase
hunting opportunity for game
birds and elk.
• Downlisted Borax Lake
Chub from Endangered to
Threatened and removed
Foskett Spring Speckled Dace
from the state’s List of
Threatened and Endangered
Species.
• Adopted permanent rules
for issuing leftover limited
Landowner Preference tags and
for the transfer of controlled or
limited tags from people to
their terminally ill immediate
family members.
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