The rare closure of most of the Columbia River to salmon fishing is largely the result of bad weather and bad ocean conditions in 2015, according to officials at Washington State Fish and Wildlife.
On Thursday they closed salmon fishing on the main stem of the Columbia River after the count of fall chinook at Bonneville Dam last week was only about 106,000 fish. The count is normally about double that.
The closure comes as the fall chinook count at Bonneville Dam hovers around 29 percent below the preseason forecast. The largest percentage of returning salmon are 4-year-olds, and salmon that entered the ocean in 2015 saw some of the most difficult oceanic conditions on record.