Chinook Salmon Fishery Update (7/5/2023) Clearwater River Return, Rapid River Run, Hells Canyon, and Lochsa River Fisheries

Hi everybody.

It is time for my weekly spring Chinook Salmon update (7/5/2023). All river sections in the Clearwater basin and Snake River will remain open for at least another week. The Rapid River run fishery closed on 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 estimate for the Clearwater River basin’s fishery is 3,337 fish (darker peach row), the Rapid River return fishery (darker blue row) is 1,890 fish, the Hells Canyon fishery (green row) is 356 fish, and the Lochsa summer fishery is 53 fish (darker grey). 

FISHERIES

Clearwater River Basin Fishery

The Clearwater River basin’s salmon fishery is winding down. Half as much effort occurred last week as the previous week, and I suspect it will drop even more this week. The only place where significant harvest occurred was in the North Fork Clearwater River with an estimated 125 fish being harvested (see table below). The average catch rate was 5 hrs/fish, which is really good. We estimate that a total of 846 adult fish have been harvested in the North Fork to date. This brings us to our harvest goal (25% of overall harvest share) that we had at the beginning of the season. However, because both the sport and Tribal fisheries are about 1,000 fish short of their harvest shares, broodstock needs should easily be met. As such, we will continue to leave the North Fork Clearwater open. Discharge from Dworshak Dam increased from about 1,500 cfs to about 10,000 cfs from July 1 to July 5 and it is projected to increase another 3,000 cfs over the next couple days. In addition, fish are now starting to move into Dworshak Hatchery. The combination of these two things will likely slow down this fishery. Most of the fish destined for Red River have migrated through the South Fork Clearwater, so we don’t expect to see much more harvest there.

Rapid River Run Fishery

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

Hells Canyon Fishery

We didn’t observe any adult Chinook Salmon being harvested below Hells Canyon Dam last week. It looks like this fishery is pretty much over.

Lochsa Summer Run Fishery

The summer Chinook Salmon fishery in the Lochsa River has been open for about two weeks now, and fishing effort has been pretty light. Most people last week struggled to catch a fish, although I received a report that a few people did well. So far, we estimate that 9 adults and 5 jacks have been caught. With only 29 fish being trapped to date, there are over 500 adult fish in the river for people to catch. 

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