The Northern Pikeminnow Sport-Reward Fishery Program is about to start, where anglers earn money, some of them A LOT of money, for catching a native fish that eats juvenile salmon and steelhead.
Funded by the Bonneville Power Administration and implemented by Washington Fish and Wildlife, the annual event on the Columbia and Snake rivers is scheduled to begin on May 11 and go through September 30.
Anglers are paid for each Northern Pikeminnow that they catch that is 9” or longer, and the more they catch, the higher the reward.
Last year, the top angler earned over $53,000 by catching almost 6,500 fish. In prior years, top anglers have earned over $100,000.
Northern Pikeminnow is a native species that eats millions of salmon and steelhead juveniles each year in the Columbia and Snake river systems.
The goal of the Pikeminnow Program is not to eradicate them, but to reduce their average size by removing many of the larger fish from their population.
Reducing the number of larger Pikeminnow helps salmon and steelhead make it to sea since smaller sized Pikeminnow eat less smolts than larger fish.
For more information on the Pikeminnow Program, go to the Washington Dept. of Fish and Wildlife website.