Is Coho for Christmas one sleigh away?

Remember that photo?

A ghost of Christmas past?

Not at all, actually.

While it was taken back in 2023, the very same sort of frame is being shot as you read this on the Clackamas River, in the state-of-the art sorting facility at PGE’s North Fork Dam.

The utility’s seasoned crew of scientists, assisted by habitat-friendly managers, has kick-started a wild coho salmon comeback like none other I can think of; sustained numbers of sustainable populations passing upriver into uninhabited spawning waters for the past, oh, eight or more years since the slick system opened in 2013.

And I’m back on Santa’s lap, asking the very same question for the fifth (sixth? seventh?) consecutive year:

WHEN IN THE NAME OF ALL THAT’S HOLY ARE WE GOING TO GET SOME WILD COHO RETENTION IN THE CLACKAMAS RIVER!??

Then, yup, I’m patted on the head and hear the stock answer: “We’re working on it.”

My last request was made at a November meeting of local fish leaders in the Clackamas regional headquarters of the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife. I only said I’d been asking for three years because that allows about twice that amount of time for a trend to be established.

C’mon people. The “working on it” elf punched his time card and went home several Santa laps back.

It’s kind of like Bill Murray’s newscaster character felt in the movie classic “Groundhog Day.”

…Except at my age, the alarm clock may not stand the test of time.

Plus, there aren’t any fetching Andie McDowells hanging around to pique my interest; just lots and lots of rinse-and-repeat homework to save wild salmon as I get closer and closer to fertilizing the river with my own remains.

At least I’m happily trotting in the wake of success (and the footsteps of the late Bob Toman, who inspired us all to do more for the habitat as well as hatchery AND wild salmon and steelhead.

(My wife, by the way, is pretty upset about PGE’s rate-raids on her household budget, but I  will never get mad at a utility that’s produced what I’ve watched unfold on the Clackamas.)

My disappointment with Santa, however, may change soon.

First, some background.

The premise to which I’ve always ascribed is to restore habitat first instead of choking what remains with cookie cutter salmon and steelhead raised in hatcheries.

THEN…when wild runs are restored satisfactorily AND can still function WITH the presence of hatchery fish (of basin-specific origin), AND ONLY then, restore angling to some semblance of tradition, even if/especially-if it means only limited retention of wild fish is required to maintain/sustain that watershed’s run.

Well guess what?

That’s pretty clearly been the case for a number of years with coho on the Clackamas River.

To help as much as possible to achieve that target, since my retirement from The Oregonian/OregonLive in 2008, I’ve become active in the Clackamas River Basin Council, a non-profit organization growing from a board of volunteers and one or two staff to a $2 million annual budget with a staff of men and women fiercely dedicated to habitat improvement.

It’s been our good fortune to partner with PGE’s equal dedication to  renewed healthy runs of coho salmon, better than average runs of spring Chinook and sustainable numbers of wild steelhead in the watershed’s forested reaches.

Coho have qualified for limited retention (IMO, of course) for enough years it should already have been on the drawing boards.

After all, we’ve watched longingly as retention seasons have returned to some coastal rivers. So why not the Clackamas?

Turns out Oregon’s coastal salmon are considered state-specific by federal managers, from whom all regulatory management decisions must gain approval under  the Endangered Species Act.

Clackamas and Columbia tributary runs, however, come under a different management “unit” that includes Washington tributaries.

Ergo, different rules and a broader context for harvest proposals when it comes to wild fish.

But wait!

It turns also out I’ve been sitting in the wrong lap. Disposal of my remains may not occur unrewarded after all.

There’s a new Santa Claus in town and he’s from nearly as many miles as one can get south of the north pole.

“We dropped the ball a little bit on this,” said Shaun Clements on Christmas Eve day.

Clements, a new (this year) deputy director of the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, was born and raised in New Zealand (sorry Santa; but I still love you and will try to be as nice as possible) and has been with the department for enough time to be considered not only an Oregonian, but a skilled tactician when it comes to dealing with the system.

…And the media. Clements has always been candid, straightforward and extremely versatile in using his skills to multi-task on behalf of both anglers and the resource.

“Someone recently told me you’d been asking about this for three years,” he said. “Where we should have had some progress and haven’t is getting a proposal put before (federal managers). They just weren’t aware.

“We can make the case the Clackamas (coho run) is doing well and there’s a harvestable opportunity.”

In fact, Clements added, in the past week, a department administrator was assigned the task of putting a proposal together for submission.

He believes the pitch can be made in 2026, although isn’t as certain it can be accomplished before next fall’s run starts clicking the counters at North Fork Dam.

So you’re saying there’s a chance?

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL AND TO ALL TIGHT LINES!