Spring Chinook Salmon Fishing Update 5/28/2024: Rapid River Run, Hells Canyon, and Clearwater River Fisheries

Hi everybody.

It is time for my weekly spring Chinook Salmon update (May 28, 2024). For those who like to fish the lower Clearwater (downstream of Cherrylane Bridge), please be aware we will be closing this river section at the end of fishing hours this Friday. If this is an area you like to fish, please read the Clearwater River Basin Fishery section below for details.

RUN UPDATE

The return of Idaho’s spring Chinook Salmon over Bonneville Dam is now about 99% complete, and by May 31, we expect the run to be 100% complete. It looks like this run will come in slightly better than what we saw in 2018 at about 90,000 adult fish (see figure below).

If you look at the table below, you will see our updated harvest share projections (as of 5/27/24). We are currently projecting the Clearwater River return’s harvest share is 4,593 adult fish (darker peach row). The Rapid River return’s projected harvest share is 1,860 adult fish (darker blue row). Finally, Hells Canyon’s projected harvest share is 690 adult fish (green row). I do want to bring to your attention that next week we will likely have the genetic data from fish collected at Lower Granite Dam analyzed which could change harvest shares for the Rapid River return. Stay tuned for that information. 

The figure below shows daily counts (based on PIT tags) of adult hatchery salmon at Lower Granite Dam that are destined to the Clearwater River and Rapid River run fisheries. This figure shows that a large pulse of fish destined for these fisheries passed over Lower Granite Dam last week. This pulse of fish has already entered the fisheries or should arrive there shortly. It appears there are still around 2,400 Clearwater bound fish between Bonneville Dam and Lower Granite Dam, and they should continue to trickle in over Lower Granite Dam for the next week or two. On the other hand, the vast majority of Rapid River bound fish have passed over Lower Granite Dam and few remain to come. River flows are forecasted to come up tomorrow (due to rain) in both the Clearwater and Salmon rivers, but it shouldn’t slow down fish migration significantly unless the rivers get brown. As such, most of the fish destined for Rapid River should be somewhere in the fishery by this Thursday.

FISHERIES

Clearwater River Basin Fishery

Fishing really picked up last week in the Clearwater River Basin as we estimated 1,367 adult fish were harvested (see Table below). Over 1,000 of these fish were caught in river Section 1 (Clearwater River downstream of Cherrylane Bridge). Catch rates were decent at 14-15 hrs/fish in sections 1 and 2, but fairly slow in the North Fork Clearwater (Section 3) at 27 hrs/fish. We did not interview any anglers last week that harvested fish upstream of Orofino Bridge; however, we know a few were caught all the way into the South Fork Clearwater River based on e-tag records that were uploaded. 

If you look at the blue section in the table above, you will see the harvest distribution goal for river Section 1 is 35% of the harvest share or 1,608 fish. Through last Sunday, we estimate that 1,320 fish have been harvested in this river section leaving only 288 fish before this distribution goal is met. As such, river Section 1 (Camas Prairie Railroad Bridge to Cherrylane Bridge) will be closing to ALL Salmon Fishing at the end of fishing hours this Friday (May 31, 2024). All other river sections will remain open for at least another week.

Rapid River Run Fishery

Harvest has started to pick up in the lower Salmon River. If you look at the table below, you will see that we estimated that 154 fish were harvested last week. Most of the harvest (94 fish) occurred in river Section 2 of the lower Samon River (Hammer Creek to Time Zone Bridge). Catch rates were on the slow side at > 30 hrs/fish. We did not interview anybody who had harvested a fish from the Little Salmon River last week. Flows are supposed to jump up in the lower Salmon River and peak on Thursday at about 44,000 cfs. However, by Friday afternoon, flows are projected to drop below 36,000 cfs which should provide good fishing conditions for the weekend.

Hells Canyon Fishery

Fishing below Hells Canyon Dam just continues to get better! Last week the catch rates were about as good as they get for salmon at 5 hrs/fish resulting in an estimated harvest of 232 adults and 21 jacks. I suspect good fishing will continue through at least this weekend. If you have never fished below Hells Canyon Dam before, be warned that there isn’t a lot of room to fish, and it can get very crowded when the fishing is good. To date, we estimate that about 331 fish have been harvested which leaves 358 before our harvest share is met. As such, this fishery will remain open for at least another week.

Have fun fishing!