After a delay of nearly a month,

The sport hatchery steelhead fishery on the lower Columbia River will open Friday under an agreement reached earlier today by fishery managers in Washington and Oregon.

Fishing rules adopted by both states will allow anglers to keep hatchery steelhead, along with sockeye salmon and hatchery jack chinook salmon, upriver from Rocky Point to the Interstate 5 bridge. Hatchery-reared steelhead and chinook salmon are marked with a clipped adipose fin.

This opening will give anglers four days of fishing in that stretch of the river before the summer seasons begins Tuesday, said Bill Tweit, Columbia River policy leader for the state Department of Fish and Wildlife.

Starting Tuesday, anglers can keep any jack chinook - marked or unmarked - but must release any adult chinook salmon they catch until June 22, when the Columbia River opens for summer chinook fishing below Bonneville Dam.

Fishing rules, both before and after Tuesday, are described in the Fishing in Washington rules pamphlet.

"We would have liked to give anglers more of a spring fishery," Tweit said in a news release. "But only now, when most spring chinook salmon have passed Bonneville Dam, are fishery managers feeling confident that we can meet state and federal conservation goals."

Tweit explained that the month-long delay in the lower Columbia River was spurred by an updated run forecast for upriver spring chinook, indicating that only about half as many of those fish would return this year as originally expected. A portion of that run is listed under the federal Endangered Species Act, requiring the states to take action, Tweit said in the release.

Spring chinook fisheries were cut short throughout the Columbia River, but fishery managers were still concerned about impacts on wild spring chinook caught and released in the steelhead fishery, he said.

"We conduct these fisheries under strict federal limits on incidental mortality rates," Tweit said. "When the run size is lower than expected, there is very little margin for error."

Under the initial run forecast, nearly 300,000 upriver spring chinook were expected to return to the Columbia River this year. The latest forecast, issued Monday, anticipated a return of 165,000 fish, up 5,000 from the previous estimate.

"That small increase helped tip the balance to provide these four days of fishing," Tweit said.

The Obama Administraiton is beginning to fill some of the director positions for the various Department of Interior agencies. President Obama has announced he intends to nominate Sam D. Hamilton to be the next director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

There has been no announcement on a person to lead the National Park Service. Jon Jarvis, the agency's western regional director and former Mount Rainier National Park superintendent, has been mentioned as a possible candidate for the NPS post.

Here is the rest of the Hamilton news release:

Hamilton, a career senior biologist and manager with the Service, currently is director of the agency’s Southeast Region, The nomination requires Senate confirmation.

“Sam has vast experience with every aspect of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s mission, making him an ideal nominee to direct the agency,” Salazar said. “Throughout his career, he has been an innovative leader in developing new conservation initiatives and resolving complex and controversial environmental issues. He will be a strong advocate for sound science and effective management of our nation’s fish and wildlife.”

Hamilton, who has been with the Service for 30 years, was appointed Southeast Regional Director in Atlanta, Georgia in 1997, serving as senior operating executive with full strategic planning and management responsibility for a $484 million budget and a 1,500-person work-force that operates in 10 states and the Caribbean.

As regional director, Hamilton has been responsible for the oversight and management of more than 350 federally listed threatened and endangered species and 128 national wildlife refuges. He has provided leadership and oversight to the department’s restoration work in the Everglades, the largest ecosystem restoration project in the country, and oversaw recovery and restoration work following Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, which devastated coastal wetlands, wildlife refuges, and other wildlife habitat along the Gulf of Mexico.

Hamilton’s leadership fostered creative solutions and innovation that led to the establishment of a carbon sequestration program that has helped biologists in the Southeast restore roughly 80,000 acres of wildlife habitat. His emphasis on partnership bolstered the Service’s fisheries program and helped establish the Southeast Aquatic Resources Partnership to restore vital aquatic habitats across the region. This partnership is a key piece of the National Fish Habitat Action Plan.

Prior to becoming regional director, Hamilton served as assistant regional director of the ecological services in Atlanta and the Service’s Texas state administrator in Austin.

Hamilton graduated from Mississippi State University with a Bachelor of Science degree in biology in 1977.