Spring Chinook Salmon Fishing Update 4/20/2023: Rapid River Run, Hells Canyon, and Clearwater River Fisheries

Hi everybody.

The spring Chinook Salmon season starts this Saturday (April 22, 2022), so I figured it was time to start providing my weekly spring Chinook Salmon fishery updates. I will be providing updates on the Rapid River Run fishery that occurs in the lower Salmon and Little Salmon rivers, the Hells Canyon fishery which occurs from Hells Canyon Dam downstream about 50 miles to Dug Bar boat ramp, and the Clearwater River basin fishery.

My plans are to provide weekly updates on these spring Chinook Salmon fisheries from now until they close. These updates will provide information on what the run looks like, what our harvest share is, how many fish have been harvested, where people are catching fish, and any changes in the rules or seasons that might have or will occur. I will try to get these updates out by at least Wednesday each week (I will likely skip next week due to meetings I have). 

For those of you who are unsure of what the seasons and limits are for this year, you can click on this link (2023 spring Chinook rules) to get all the details on what river reaches are open, when the fisheries occur, and what the limits are. Because changes in the fishery can occur quickly, before going out, please be sure to check in on this website, contact IDFGD staff, or follow the blogs I put out to get an up-to-date status on the different fisheries.

Several of you asked, when providing my first update, could I explain what type of public support there was for starting the seasons the way we did. I thought this was a great idea, so I have added a section called “2023 Public Input and Season Setting” below that covers why the Fish and Game Commission adopted the seasons and limits they did to start the fisheries this year. If this is not of interest to you, and you just want to learn what this year’s return is looking like, just skip down to the section called “2023 Forecast”. 

2023 Public Input and Season Setting

The first thing people should be aware of is that over the years we have worked with the public to develop tables that describe the types of seasons and limits they would like to see implemented based on the size of the run. We often refer to these tables as “harvest matrixes”. I have included the harvest matrix for each of the three spring Chinook Salmon fisheries below. You will notice that these tables all have the same column headers, and the first column header is called “Adult Harvest Share”. The more harvest there is available, the more days of the week you can fish, the higher the limits will be, and the more areas will be open to fishing. The goal is to provide lots of harvest opportunities when the runs are large, but as the harvest shares decline, regulations would become more restrictive to help extend the length of the season. These tables have been tweaked over the years, typically at the request of the public, to provide more of the types of opportunity the public desires. People should be aware that in our public input process (public meetings and internet survey) we ask people if they are supportive of the guidelines provided in these harvest matrixes, and typically we go with “majority rules”. 

The harvest matrix below is for the Rapid River run fishery, and the reason there is a row shaded in grey is because this year we are forecasting the harvest share will be about 3,800 fish. When we asked the public this year (at public meetings and through the internet) if they wanted to start the season using the guidelines described in the shaded area of the table below, about 80% said they did. Because there was such high support these are the seasons and limits the commission adopted. Some people said they were not happy with how we plan to distribute harvest between the lower Salmon and Little Salmon rivers (50/50), but we let the public know we would address that issue next year when we had better information to share with them.

Chinook seasons and limits proposal table for the Rapid River Run fishery.

The harvest matrix below is for the Hells Canyon fishery, and this year we are forecasting the return to this fishery will provide a harvest share of 710 adults. The shaded row in the table below captures this harvest share and the seasons and limits associated with it and received 94% support from the public.

Chinook seasons and limits proposal table for the Hells Canyon fishery.

The last harvest matrix I’m going to share with you is for the Clearwater River Basin fishery, and this year we are forecasting the return to this fishery will provide a harvest share of about 2,700 adults. The shaded row in the table below captures this harvest share and the seasons and limits associated with it. Those who commented on this fishery know that the questions we asked pertaining to the season structure of this fishery were more complicated than just asking whether they wanted to follow the guidelines in the shaded row of the table below. We also asked if people would rather start the adult limits in the North Fork Clearwater and South Fork Clearwater rivers at 2 adults per day based on comments we received from anglers during the 2022 fishery. About 70% of people said they wanted to start the daily limits at one (1) adult in the North Fork, 52% said to start the daily limit at one (1) adult in the South Fork, and 78% said they wanted to follow the guidelines in the table below (dependent on responses to daily limits in the North and South forks). For these reasons, the commission adopted the seasons and limits described in the shaded row below.

Chinook seasons and limits proposal table for the Clearwater River Basin fishery.

Those who attended our public meetings know that we discussed a lot more than I covered above. If anybody wants more details on how people commented on the different aspects of these fisheries, please contact me and I will gladly share more information with you.

2023 Forecast

For 2023, the adult forecast for hatchery spring and summer Chinook Salmon is about 49,300 fish. This estimate is based on the number of jacks that returned last year. This forecast is very similar to last year’s forecast, but last year the return came in about 33% higher than forecasted. Let’s hope something similar happens this year. To give you a feel for how this forecast compares to previous returns to Idaho, I have included a figure below that shows the number of hatchery adult spring and summer Chinook Salmon that have passed over Lower Granite Dam (last dam fish pass over before entering Idaho) since 1980. This figure does include some fish that are destined for Washington and Oregon, but typically over 90% of the fish passing over Lower Granite Dam are destined for places in Idaho. The general take-home message is we are forecasting that the return will be a little less than last year, but better than the five years prior to that. Don’t interpret this to mean that we will be satisfied with this return if the forecast is accurate. The goals we are striving to achieve are considerably higher than this forecast.

What is the run looking like now (4/20/2023)

So, let’s talk about what the return is looking like now, and whether you should be getting your fishing gear organized so you can try to catch a salmon this weekend. To best understand what the run is looking like right now, we need to look at fish counts and Bonneville Dam. I created the figure below that compares this year’s return (red line) to last year’s return (solid black line) and the 10-year average (dotted black line). As you can see, we are still very early in the return so a lot can change from now. That being said, counts are tracking below what we typically observe and the total count of 1,094 (from March 15 to April 19) is the fourth lowest count in the last 10 years. There is no need to panic as water temperatures are on the cold side in the Columbia River which is known to delay migration timing. That being said, if we don’t start seeing counts pick up over the next week, the likelihood of having a decent run becomes less likely.

Counts at Lower Granite Dam show that only two spring Chinook Salmon have passed (as of April 19). That means there really isn’t a lot of reason to go fishing unless you just want to spend some time on the water to work out all the kinks in your gear.

After returns pick up, I will provide a table in my updates that shows how many fish we are projecting will return to different areas in Idaho based on PIT tag detections at the dams. This information will not only indicate areas you may want to fish, but we will also use it to set our harvest shares.

As we start documenting harvest in our creel surveys, I will also include tables in my updates that will show where and how many fish we estimate have been caught. Not only will these tables show where the fishing is good, but it also will give you a feel for how long a river reach will remain open before it achieves its harvest goal. 

That is all I have for you now. As I indicated earlier, I will likely skip next week’s update due to meetings. So, expect my next update to come out in the first week of May. 

I hope you all are having a great spring.