Idaho's Steelhead Fishery Update, September 2, 2025

Hi everybody. With Idaho’s fall steelhead season starting to kick into full gear, I figured now would be a good time to put out a fall steelhead update. In this update I will be discussing Idaho’s early and late steelhead returns and what you could expect in the future.  

STEELHEAD

Idaho’s Early Summer Steelhead Run (destined for the upper Salmon, Little Salmon and Snake rivers)

Right now, most Idaho bound steelhead that have passed over Bonneville Dam are early run summer steelhead that are destined for the upper Salmon, Little Salmon, and Snake rivers. These fish pass over Bonneville Dam on average about a month earlier than fish destined for the Clearwater River basin. Evidence suggests that about 72% of this run has passed over Bonneville Dam (as of September 1, 2025) which gives us a good understanding of what you can expect this year for this fishery. As an FYI, the “Dworshak stock” steelhead that are released in various places in the Salmon River drainage are not included in assessment as they represent a small portion of this return and have a later run timing similar to the fish returning to the Clearwater River.

To help portray how this year’s early return compares to previous years, I have put together the figure below. This figure was developed using PIT tag detections collected at Bonneville Dam since 2014. In this figure, the solid red line shows the number of fish that have passed over Bonneville Dam to date (through September 1), and the dotted red line shows the number of fish we project will cross the dam (assuming 72% of the run is complete). This data shows that about 18,000 early hatchery steelhead destined for the upper Salmon, Little Salmon, and Snake rivers have passed over Bonneville Dam as of 9/1/2025 with the run projected to reach around 26,000 fish. One thing I need to point out is this data does not include returns of 1-ocean steelhead raised at Magic Valley hatchery that were released in the upper Salmon and Little Salmon rivers last year. Steelhead were not PIT tagged at this hatchery last year (2024) due to disease concerns which prevents us from tracking their return. If these fish survive at similar rates as has occurred in the past, we project that about 3,500 more 1-ocean steelhead will pass over Bonneville Dam than the figure below projects. This would bring the final run projection over Bonneville Dam close to about 30,000 fish which is similar to what occurred in 2016 (yellow line).

One of the interesting things we continue to see is the pattern of where one year the run is dominated by 1-ocean fish and the next year it is dominated by 2-ocean fish. This is a year where the 1-ocean fish are dominating the return (right now about 60% are 1-ocean). Despite that, the return of 2-ocean fish is still good with over 10,000 projected to ultimately pass over Bonneville Dam. In addition, we project over 800 early return, 3-ocean steelhead will pass over Bonneville Dam. That may not seem like much, but that is four times more than we have ever seen for early return steelhead since we started using PIT tags to track their abundance. Some of these fish may approach 20 pounds which will be exciting for those who hook into one.

One of the things we keep track of is how many of the steelhead in this early run are destined for traps where we can collect them for broodstock. If not enough fish are returning to these places to meet broodstock goals, we will need to make our regulations more restrictive. I put together the figure below that compares how many fish we project will make it to our traps in the Snake and Salmon rivers this year (2025) to previous years (using PIT tags detected at Bonneville Dam). The blue portion of the bars show the number of steelhead that spent one year in the ocean and the yellow portion shows how many spent two or three years in the ocean. Those bars with text above them were the years when we applied more restrictive regulations to ensure that we would meet broodstock needs. Now that we have had more experience managing these fisheries with smaller returns, we recognize that we were probably overly restrictive during some of the years. Limit restrictions probably aren’t necessary when over 12,000 fish destined for our traps pass over Bonneville Dam. With over 23,000 of these fish projected to pass over Bonneville Dam this year, we are well within the safe zone. That means these fisheries will be able to occur with our normal regulations (3-fish daily limit). For more details on the steelhead regulations please refer to this link: https://idfg.idaho.gov/fish/steelhead/rules.

Idaho’s Late Summer Run (Clearwater River Basin Fish)

We have been seeing an up and down pattern with the number of hatchery steelhead returning to Clearwater River basin since 2012 (see table below). This pattern seems to be influenced by the number of Pink Salmon that occur in the ocean which also fluctuates up and down. Based on this pattern, this year is expected to be a down year.

The return of hatchery steelhead destined for Clearwater River basin is still early (17-26% complete over Bonneville Dam), but the data coming in suggests that this return is indeed going to be down. To give you a feel for what I mean, I have put together the figure below that shows the run timing of Clearwater hatchery steelhead over Bonneville Dam since 2014 (using PIT tag data). In this figure, the red line displays this year’s return, and the red dotted/dashed lines show the projections assuming the run is early (26% complete) or average (17% complete). This data shows that as of September 1, 2025 about 2,300 Clearwater hatchery steelhead have passed over Bonneville Dam, and if the run timing is early (26% complete), this run will end up at around 9,000 fish, and if it has an average run timing (17% complete), the run would end up at around 13,000 fish. Survival for these fish as they migrate from Bonneville Dam to Lower Granite Dam has averaged about 76% which means 7,000 to 10,000 Clearwater hatchery steelhead will make it to Idaho using the early and average run timing projections. 

When Clearwater hatchery steelhead returns to Idaho have been below 10,000 fish in the past, we have implemented more restrictive regulations to ensure we stayed within our harvest share. Although the run is still early and things could change considerably, I wanted to give you all a heads up that the regulations could change in the future. Because the vast majority of steelhead harvest in the Clearwater basin occurs after November 10, we have time to better understand what the run will be like before a decision needs to be made. 

Steelhead Fisheries

The steelhead harvest fishery opened yesterday (September 1) in the Snake River, Salmon River, Clearwater River below Memorial Bridge, and North Fork Clearwater River. Then on Sept 10 the rest of the Clearwater River opens to harvest. The harvest opener was surprisingly slow even though around 4,000 steelhead had passed over Lower Granite dam so far this run-year. I suspect catch rates will increase some after this heat wave ends. No PIT tagged hatchery steelhead bound for the Clearwater River basin have passed over Lower Granite Dam yet, so don’t expect to catch those jumbo 15 pound plus steelhead quite yet. Typically, these fish don’t start showing up in the Clearwater River until mid to late September with peak passage over Lower Granite Dam occurring in October. 

Good luck fishing!