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Year of the big salmon.

Article Excerpt
Byline: Mike Stahlberg The Register-Guard

Psst! Hey, buddy! Want to catch big fish - without getting seasick?

Spend some time over the next four to six weeks fishing the Willamette River or one of its tributaries.

According to state fishery biologists, your chances of catching a 15- to 25-pound spring chinook salmon are better this year than they've been at any time in recent memory.

The reason? This is shaping up to be The Year of The Big Salmon in the Willamette.

For the second year in a row - and only the fifth time since 1945 - in excess of 100,000 Willamette spring chinook will return from the ocean. The modern record of 130,000 springers was set in 1990. Last year's run of 121,700 was second-best.

This year's springer run, however, may be more memorable than either of those - if somewhat smaller at about 110,000 fish.

What makes the 2003 run remarkable is that it contains an unusually large percentage of older - and, thus, bigger - salmon.

"Eighty- to ninety-thousand of these will be the larger 5-year-olds," says Steve King, a Portland biologist who heads the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife's Columbia River salmon program.

Five-year-old spring chinook generally tip the scales at 15 to 25 pounds. Four-year-olds weigh in at a mere 8 to 12 pounds.

"The river down here is full of 5-year-olds," King said. "The run looks real strong, and the majority of the fish being caught are 15 pounds on up."

Normally, a spring chinook salmon run...