Chinook Salmon Fishery Update (6/27/2023): Clearwater River Return, Rapid River Run, Hells Canyon, and Lochsa River Fisheries

Hi everybody.

It is time for my weekly spring Chinook Salmon update (6/27/2023). All river sections in the Clearwater basin and Snake River will remain open for at least another week. The Rapid River run fishery has been closed since June 14, 2023.  For more details, read on.

RUN UPDATE

The Clearwater Region’s estimated adult harvest shares for each of its Chinook Salmon fisheries are provided in the table below. The Clearwater River basin’s estimate is 3,300 fish (darker peach row), the Rapid River return (darker blue row) is 1,890 fish, the Hells Canyon fishery (green row) is 356 fish, and the Lochsa summer run is 53 fish (darker grey). 

FISHERIES

Clearwater River Basin Fishery

Fishing effort and harvest continues to drop off in the Clearwater River basin (see table below). The only place where significant harvest occurred was in North Fork Clearwater (133 fish) and the upper South Fork Clearwater River (38 fish). Catch rates in these two areas were less than 10 hrs/fish, which is good. We estimate that a total of 719 adult fish have been harvested in the North Fork to date. This leaves us with about 100 more fish before we reach our harvest goal for the year (25% of the overall harvest share). With effort and catch rates dropping in the North Fork, we suspect harvest will decline allowing us to keep the North Fork Clearwater River open for another week. However, don’t be surprised if this is the last week this river section is open. All other reaches are far from reaching their harvest goals and will continue to remain open.

Rapid River Run Fishery

This fishery closed at the end of fishing hours on June 14, 2023.

Hells Canyon Fishery

We estimated that 19 adult Chinook Salmon were harvested below Hells Canyon Dam last week. Catch rates were actually good at 10 hrs/fish. This week’s harvest brings the season total to 291 fish which leaves us with 67 fish in our harvest share. As such, this fishery will continue for at least another week.

Lochsa Summer Run Fishery

The summer Chinook Salmon fishery in the Lochsa River opened on June 22, 2023, and we estimated that three adult fish were caught through last weekend. Based on the timing of PIT tag detections at Lower Granite Dam and the Lochsa River array, close to 400 summer run fish have entered the Lochsa River. None of these fish have been trapped yet which means they are all in the river available to be caught. This could make for a good Fourth of July weekend. 

I hope you all have a great Fourth of July weekend!