One evening during the recent Buoy 10 season on the lower Columbia River, my boat was one of only four, searching for an upriver bright for my family and friends to enjoy. It's rare to have the river to myself; without clients to hear jokes from, I have time to ponder. As I look to the sun setting on the horizon, I can't help but think about what this place was like before European settlement. What would fishing have been 150 years ago with today's equipment?
 

It had taken eight hours to catch a dozen fish for my clients earlier in the day, from a run of about 1.2 million salmon, most of them less aggressive hatchery fish. How long would it have taken a century ago when we had closer to 16 million aggressive wild salmon returning? The Columbia has produced astounding numbers of returning adults the last three seasons, yet we still have 13 runs of salmonids listed under the ESA. How did we get to this point?

Lethally warm water temperatures in their freshwater ecosystems, coupled with a warm water blob in the ocean will spell trouble for returning adults in the years to come. You'll hear me talk about Ecosystem Based Management (EBM), which is a hands-off approach to management--actually, no management at all. We're already seeing some EBM: protecting the forage prey base, riparian plantings, and carcass tosses are some examples.

I'll keep daydreaming about what it would have been like to troll a herring through a school of a million salmon in August on the lower Columbia 150 years ago. Not only would we have our limit in 20 minutes, but we'd be releasing fish under 35 pounds. It's important to realize the footprint we've had on our natural world in just the last hundred years. We will celebrate with salmon barbecues and brag about the fish that got away, but, realize this: we're now at a stage in our history where we know what causes the decline of salmon, and we're to blame. What will you do today to ensure we don't collectively put the nail in the coffin of this iconic species?