MOSES LAKE - The volunteers for the First Quincy Valley Pikeminnow Derby say the effort was a success. There were 135 anglers registered. No tagged fish were caught for the big money. However $5,000 was awarded for other reasons.

A 12-year-old, name not recorded, was awarded $250, plus a $50 gift certificate, for the largest fish caught, which weighed 3.1 pounds.

Individual anglers were awarded money for the combined weight of all fish caught by individual anglers, including four $500 prizes, six $250 and 10 $100.

Anglers with the 10 largest fish were awarded money also, including two $500, four $250 and four $100.

A total of 950 fish were caught and they were donated to a local organic gardener. Funding for the derby came from NOAA Fisheries, Fish and Game, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Colville Confederated Tribes, The Yakama Nation and Grant County PUD

Good job volunteers. We understand the event is a go for next year also.

Selective steelhead fishery now open

Fish and Wildlife has opened a selective fishery for hatchery steelhead on the upper Columbia River above Rock Island Dam, and on the Wenatchee, Icicle, Entiat, Methow, and Okanogan rivers.

Salmon fishing has also reopened from Wells Dam to Brewster, and the Similkameen River will open to hatchery steelhead retention beginning Nov 1.

The steelhead fisheries will remain open until further notice, while the salmon fishery will run through Oct. 15.

Approximately 18,000 adult steelhead are expected to return to the upper Columbia River this year. This is enough to allow the department to open area steelhead fisheries for the eighth straight season.

Because both wild and hatchery-reared fish are expected to return in significantly lower numbers than in the past two years, additional constraints will be required on those fisheries. This also means the steelhead season may close earlier than in the past two seasons. Plus three areas of the Columbia River, Vernita, Priest Rapids and Wanapum, will not open at all for steelhead fishing this fall.

The daily limit on all rivers is two hatchery steelhead, marked with a clipped adipose fin and measuring at least 20 inches in length. Any steelhead with an intact adipose fin must be released unharmed and must not be removed from the water. Anglers must also release any steelhead with one or more round holes punched in their tail fin.

Anglers must retain any legal hatchery steelhead they catch until they reach their daily limit of two fish. Once they have retained two fish, they must stop fishing for steelhead.

These selective steelhead fisheries are specifically designed to help maintain a high proportion of wild steelhead on the spawning grounds and enhance recovery of the region's wild steelhead. In this way, anglers can play an important role in that effort by removing hatchery fish above the number needed to meet spawning goals.

Selective gear rules apply to all areas where steelhead seasons are open, except that bait may be used on the mainstem Columbia River.

In the chinook salmon fishery between Wells Dam and the Highway 173 Bridge in Brewster, anglers will have a six-fish daily limit, which can include up to three adult chinook, only one of which can be a wild fish.

Areas now open to fishing for hatchery steelhead include: Mainstem Columbia River: From Rock Island Dam to 400 feet below Chief Joseph Dam. Night closure and selective gear rules apply, except bait is allowed.