As one fisherman mused Wednesday, "It's hard to get my mind around the fact that slow fishing is good news."

Yet it's true for anglers pursuing chinook and coho salmon in the popular Buoy 10 fishing area at the mouth of the Columbia River. A dip in the catch rate in recent days will allow the Buoy 10 sport season to remain open as planned through Sept. 3 and the long Labor Day weekend.

Oregon and Washington department of fish and wildlife officials met twice this week to review chinook catch totals and rates. A spike in the catch rate last week -- 0.3 chinook per angler Aug. 22-24 -- prompted fears that the fishery would catch its allotted share of the returning fall chinook before the weekend.

But by Sunday the catch rate had fallen to 0.1 or less and remained at that level through midweek, according to department surveys of the Buoy 10 anglers. The agency staff had calculated that a continued catch rate over 0.1 would push the fishery over its 4,300-chinook allotment.

Anglers had caught an estimated 2,380 chinook and 1,800 coho during 14,200 angler trips to Buoy 10 Aug. 1-26 with catch rates climbing late in the month as the fall runs began to enter the lower river. ODFW and WDFW staffs project that from 1,100 to 1,700 chinook will be caught in the area from Aug. 29 through Sept. 3, based on effort and catch rate trends observed in previous years and current conditions.

The declined catch rate at Buoy 10 and increased catch rates further upriver could mean the peak of the run has moved upstream. The ODFW's John North said an aerial survey counted 1,100 fishing boats Tuesday on the Columbia mainstem above Buoy 10.

The catch rate had jumped to 0.4, up from an average of 0.2 in recent days.

"It's building," North said. The mainstem fishery is open from the Tongue Point/Rocky Point line just above Astoria, Ore., upstream to Hwy. 395 Bridge at Pasco, Wash., for chinook and coho.

Upriver fall chinook, which make up the bulk of the run, have been showing up in larger numbers in recent days at Bonneville Dam's fish ladders. The fall chinook count Wednesday was 6,103, nearly doubling the previous day's total. Counts at the dam have slowly risen through August and topped 1,000 for the first time this year on Aug. 17.

Typically Bonneville passage for the upriver run, which includes fish bound for the Columbia's Hanford Reach and the Snake River basin, is 50 percent complete around Sept. 7.

Through Wednesday 34,288 fall chinook had passed the dam. Fisheries officials estimate that this year's run will include 185,200 upriver bright fall chinook, 69,100 mid-Columbia brights and 21,300 Bonneville Pool Hatchery tule fall chinook.