The Oregon Fish and Game Commission chose to maintain status quo on Foster Lake fishing regulations on Sept. 21.
“The commission voted to leave Foster status quo next year,” Dan Dee Sales owner Jack Legg Jr. said. “The main reason is they didn’t receive direction from the National Marine Fisheries Service (NFMS).”
At stake are fishing regulations for trout. Current rules allow a five-fish limit. The fish must be eight inches long.
Legg and the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife (ODF&W) and NMFS officials met during the summer to discuss rules to protect juvenile steelhead, which can be inadvertantly harvested under the eight-inch limit.
ODF&W officials had proposed restricting trout harvest to fin-clipped fish only.
Legg proposed increasing the size restriction to 10 to 20 inches to protect juvenile and adult steelhead.
“I think if we did the 10 to 20 inche, probably we would see any more changes (to regulations) in the future,” Legg said. NMFS officials had backed the proposal.
Both proposed rule changes would have protected the steelhead, Legg said. “We just feel ours was a little bit more angler friendly.”
As part of his proposal, ODF&W would have started stocking 10-inch trout in Foster Lake.
ODF&W began considering changes in rules in response to a NMFS requirement to protect the jvenile steelhead.
In other decisions, the commission decided to open Quartzville a month early, in April.