Test sites are trying to prove they can catch hatchery salmon while protecting wild, endangered species

Clifton Channel fish trap: Designers have come up with a new type of “pound net” for use in the Lower Columbia River. Photo: Wild Fish Conservancy

By Kendra Chamberlain. November 13, 2025. This fall marks the first time in 75-plus years that a pound net fishery is operating on the Lower Columbia River.

Pound nets and other “fish traps” were banned from commercial fishing on the Columbia River more than half a century ago.

The Washington-based nonprofit Wild Fish Conservancy (WFC) has spent the past decade working with a group of commercial fishers, processors and state and federal government officials to develop and test modified pound net fish traps that the organization says could make salmon fishing on the Columbia more sustainable and profitable.

The organization says the contemporary traps, each privately operated, make it possible to harvest abundant stocks of hatchery salmon, while leaving wild and endangered salmon unharmed.

Now, with the first state-sanctioned, pound net season for the fishery underway, they have to prove it.

The salmon dilemma

Commercial salmon fishing in the Pacific Northwest has long been burdened with an intractable dilemma: How can commercial fisheries harvest more hatchery salmon and fewer wild salmon?

It’s a question that Oregon and Washington have sought to tackle through the shared, state-managed Emerging Commercial Fishery program.

The program, which launched in 2024, is evaluating three different fishing gears for sustainability and commercial viability over a five-year period.

Build it and they will … Hunting Islands fish trap under construction on the Lower Columbia River. Photo: Wild Fish Conservancy

At issue is whether any of these gear types can improve on the catches of target species and stocks while keeping mortality rates of non-target species and stocks low. And do so in an economically efficient manner.

“It’s a matter of harvesting the right fish while protecting the endangered fish,” says Adrian Tuohy, a biologist with the Wild Fish Conservancy.

Those three gear types are purse seines, beach seines and pound nets. All three have history in the Columbia River.

For thousands of years, Tribes used a variety of fish traps in low-gradient rivers and estuaries around the Pacific Northwest to catch salmon and other fish.

Northern Europeans developed their own fish traps for catching salmon in Scandinavia. Settlers brought those designs to North America. The European-style fish traps were first used in the Great Lakes.

Various versions of fish traps were effective at catching fish. Too effective. In less than 100 years, over-fishing contributed to the decimation of salmon populations.

Pound net fish traps were banned in Washington in 1934, then banned in Oregon in 1948.

Gillnet issues

Gillnets emerged as one of the primary gears for commercial fishing in the Lower Columbia.

Gillnets entangle fish in web fencing. Retrieving and releasing unintended catch, called “bycatch,” is difficult and stressful for the fish.

Bycatch species in the Columbia include steelhead and any threatened or endangered wild salmon.

Salmon wrangler: Fish traps inflict less trauma than other gear. Photo: Wild Fish Conservancy

Mortality rates of released fish is assumed to range from 40% to 60%.

“Washington and Oregon have never collected post-release data collection on gillnets for bycatch species in these key fisheries in the fall,” says Tuohy. “And I find that actually kind of shocking, to be honest.”

Gillnet use on the Lower Columbia has been a thorny issue for decades. Oregon and Washington have argued over if, how and when to phase out gillnetting on the river.

The two states, which co-manage fish on the river through an interstate compact, have agreed to keep gillnetting available on the mainstem of the Lower Columbia for fall salmon runs.

Meanwhile, the two states are evaluating other types of fishing gear that could prove better suited to targeting hatchery salmon while leaving wild stocks unharmed.

“The gillnet fishery handles few of the fish that we don’t want them to handle—what we call their ‘encounter rate’, or ‘handle rate’. So gillnets have a higher mortality rate, but a lower encounter rate,” says Charlene Hurst, Columbia River division manager at the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife. “Conversely, for some of those stocks, the pound nets, purse seines and beach seines have a higher encounter rate and a lower mortality rate. So they are the inverse of each other.”

Alternative gear that can harvest more hatchery fish while keeping bycatch of endangered species within the legal limits may offer conservation benefits.

But it’s unclear if the economics of alternative gear will pencil out.

How pound nets work

In 2016, the Wild Fish Conservancy and its fishing partners set out to revive the pound net fish traps of the last century as an alternative to gillnets.

Pound nets work by blocking part of the river and guiding fish into underwater holding cells. The traps consist of web fencing strung up from the high-water mark to the riverbed, using pilings, stakes or anchors.

The web fences create a maze-like structure of increasingly smaller compartments, leading the salmon into a final “live well,” where they stay until they can be identified and either harvested or released.

Fish traps corral salmon from the lead wall to the heart, spiller (pot) and live well for sorting, selective harvest or passive release. Photo: Wild Fish Conservancy

Hatchery salmon are identified by their missing adipose fins, small vestigial fins located between the dorsal and tailfins. Oregon and Washington state hatcheries clip millions of fins off of salmon each year to help fishers distinguish between wild populations and hatchery-grown fish.

In the live wells, underwater cameras might be used to identify the fish. More commonly, fishers simply handle the fish underwater and feel for presence or absence of the adipose fin. If a wild fish is identified, an underwater gate is opened or it might be dip-netted and sent on its way.

WFC looked at both Indigenous and European designs to inform its own design, then worked to make sure the new traps were more selective and less stressful on fish.

“We did a lot of trial and error, in collaboration with our fishing partners. And we had tons of our own engineering to figure out how to actually piece one of these fully together,” says Tuohy. “We designed the tool to minimize all the negative things to fish, and to maximize fish survival.”

Fish swim freely in the trap and the nets are designed to prevent entanglement, reducing both stress and physical harm.

In addition, fish aren’t exposed to the air at any point, and there’s no crushing, bruising or scale loss that can occur with other types of fishing gear.

Starting in 2018, WFC and WDFW established a test fishery near Cathlamet, Wash., where fish were caught, tagged, released and tracked. The results have been impressive. For adult spring-run chinook, summer-run chinook and coho, release survival rates approached an astounding 100%, according to one peer-reviewed study.

“Obviously there’s not 100% survival for any gear type, but from all the research and data collection that we’ve done, we could say—with high confidence—that survival is around 99%, which is excellent compared to anything else that’s out there,” says Tuohy.

After receiving an Emerging Commercial Fishery designation in 2024, three small-scale, pound net fisheries began operating commercially in the fall of 2025.

The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife is evaluating the traps for broader commercial application in the Lower Columbia River.

Cost effective?

Pound nets appear much more expensive to build and maintain than gillnets. They have higher startup costs, require larger crews and, because they’re immobile, may not be as effective if fish alter their swimming routes up the river.

No one knows if pound nets are economically viable for commercial harvesting of salmon.

WFC acknowledges that costs associated with the pound nets are higher than gillnets. But the organization believes the conservation benefits may lead to a higher market price for the salmon. Tuohy says some high-end markets and restaurants are willing to pay more for fish with sustainable market certifications.

Easy does it: Wild Fish Conservancy staff member Joe Verelli passive fishing on a Columbia River fish trap. Photo: Wild Fish Conservancy

A lot is riding on this year’s harvest results.

The Emerging Commercial Fishery program is slated to run for five years before a permanent decision is made about the pound nets.

WDFW’s Hurst says that depending on salmon runs and funding constraints, those five years may not run consecutively.

Tuohy is hopeful that Oregon and Washington will ultimately decide to authorize expansion of the fish traps.

“We’ve already done all the research, and we’ve shown that it works for the environment and can work for fishermen,” says Tuohy. “The adoption of selective fishing techniques to remove hatchery fish and to release bycatch and threatened endangered salmon unharmed … it’s obviously the direction we need to go in.”