THE DALLES — The program that gives anglers a chance to earn thousands of dollars by hooking fish on the Columbia and Snake rivers opened May 1.

The Northern Pikeminnow Sport Reward Fishery Program has paid anglers for more than three decades to land the salmon-eating predators.

In 2023 the program reached a milestone — 1 million angling days since it started in 1991.

“That milestone is a really big deal as a testament to a very successful, long-lived (Bonneville Power Administration) project that has been helping Pacific Northwest salmonids for the past 33 years,” said Eric Winther, project leader of the Columbia River Predator Control Program through the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife.

The program is funded by the BPA and administered by the Pacific States Marine Fisheries Commission, along with the Oregon and Washington Departments of Fish and Wildlife.

The pikeminnow reward season lasts until Sept. 30 at most stations. Specific start dates and times at each pikeminnow station are available under the stations tab of the website, www.pikeminnow.org/stations-maps/. This is the second season in which anglers can register to fish using the Pikeminnow Registration mobile phone app available on both Apple and Android devices. The phone app eliminates the need to submit a paper registration prior to fishing which gives anglers more time on the water catching northern pikeminnow.

Fishing will take place from the mouth of the Columbia River to Priest Rapids Dam in Eastern Washington, as well as in the Snake River, from its convergence with the Columbia to Hells Canyon Dam along the Idaho-Oregon border. These areas represent a substantial portion of the migration corridor of juvenile salmon and steelhead, which are prey to northern pikeminnow.

Northern pikeminnow consume millions of juvenile salmon and steelhead every year, according to a press release from BPA.

The reward program aims to reduce northern pikeminnow populations by 10% to 20% in the Columbia River each year. Since 1991, predation of juvenile salmon and steelhead by northern pikeminnow has been reduced up to 40% through the removal of more than 5.59 million fish, according to the press release.

This year, rewards for northern pikeminnow catches will range from $6 to $10 per fish.

The more fish an angler lands, the more each fish is worth. Anglers receive $6 for the first 25 fish they catch. After 25, fish are worth $8 each, and after 200 they are worth $10 each.

In 2023, the top 20 anglers caught an average of 4,005 fish per angler and averaged reward payments of $40,135 each for the five-month season.

The highest-paid angler earned $107,800.

State fish and wildlife biologists have also released tagged northern pikeminnow into the Columbia and Snake rivers, which have their own special reward.

These verified externally tagged northern pikeminnow are worth $500, with verified internally tagged fish worth $200 each.

Grant Waltz, project lead for the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, emphasized that tagged fish are also valuable to state fish and wildlife biologists, as they help the program estimate if the fishery has met the harvest goal of 10% to 20% of the northern pikeminnow population.