Spring Chinook Salmon Fishing Update 6/24/2025: Rapid River Run, Hells Canyon, and Clearwater River Fisheries

Hi everybody. 

This will be my last weekly spring Chinook Salmon update (June 24, 2025) for the season.  With the Little Salmon River closing today, we expect minimal effort and harvest in the areas that remain open. For that reason, those areas currently open will likely remain open until the end of the season – August 10, 2025. We will send out a notice if any changes occur before then.

Because this is my last spring Chinook Salmon update of the season, I am sticking to my tradition by providing a rough forecast for next year’s return. You can view this forecast at the end of this update.

HARVEST SHARES

Almost all spring Chinook Salmon destined for fisheries in the Clearwater Region have passed over Lower Granite Dam. As such, we can use PIT tag detections at Lower Granite Dam to calculate our harvest shares (see table below). The Clearwater River return’s harvest share is 5,088 adult fish (darker peach row); the Rapid River return’s (blue row) harvest share is 1,621 fish; and the Hells Canyon fishery’s (green row) harvest share is 697 fish.

FISHERIES

Clearwater River Basin

We estimate that only 68 adult fish were harvested last week in the Clearwater River basin which is a significant decline from the previous week (see table below). The only places we observed fish being harvested were river codes 6 (near Kooskia hatchery) and 7 (South Fork Clearwater River). Catch rates average around 20 hrs/fish in both areas which was similar to the previous week. The Lochsa River has alos been open to Chinook Salmon fishing since June 14, but effort and harvest has been light. We estimate that last week just three adult fish were harvested from the Lochsa River.

With effort and harvest dropping, it is evident that we will not reach our harvest share in the Clearwater River basin.  As such, all river codes that are currently open will remain open until August 10. If any unexpected closures need to occur before then, we will send out a notice. Some people have asked if we could reopen river codes 3C and 5 now that we know we won’t reach our harvest share. The broodstock collection goal in the Clearwater River basin is 5,251 adult fish. Currently, we have only collected a little over 2,000 adult fish, which means we have a long ways to go. As such, river codes 3C and 5 will remain closed. 

Rapid River Return

Last week we estimated that 162 adult fish were harvested from the Little Salmon River (see table below). When you add up all the harvest (plus catch-and-release mortality) for the season it brings us to 1,636 fish which is 15 fish over our harvest share. As such, the Director signed a closure order today (June 24, 2025) that closed all salmon fishing in the Little Salmon River (river code 20) effective immediately. I think most people would agree that the Rapid River return fishery didn’t meet our desires due to the low harvest share; however, we were able to keep all river reaches (except river code 10) open for three weeks once the fish got there.  

Hells Canyon

We estimated that 27 adults and 25 jacks were harvested last week below Hells Canyon Dam (see table below). Catch rates were actually good at around 11 hrs/fish. With effort and harvest dropping, it is evident that we will be able to keep this fishery open through August 10, 2025.

2026 ADULT FORECAST

As I indicated earlier, one of my traditions for my last Weekly Chinook Salmon update is to provide a rough forecast for next year’s spring Chinook Salmon returns based on the number of jacks we saw this year. You need to be aware that the method I am using is based on PIT tag run estimates at Bonneville Dam which are not as accurate as the “official” forecasts we will put out at the end of the year that utilize genetic data collected from fish trapped at Lower Granite Dam.

The principle behind these forecasts is there is a relationship between the number of jacks that return one year to the number of adults that will return the following year. The more jacks that return, the more adults we can expect to return the following year. The two figures below show the number of adults (yellow bars) and jacks (red bars) that have passed over Bonneville Dam (based on PIT tags) that are destined for the Clearwater basin and Rapid River since 2009. If you look at these graphs, you will notice that in the years we had large jack returns, the following year the adult return tended to be big. On the other hand, when the jack return was small, we tended to see small adult returns the following year. 

I created the table below that matches up one year’s jack return with the following year’s adult return so you can better view this jack to adult relationship. As you can see, there is a lot of variability in this relationship, but there is some correlation (about 60%). At the bottom of this table, you will see the cells in yellow. These are next year’s (2026) forecasted adult returns for the Clearwater River basin and Rapid River based on the average relation between jack and adult returns. The Clearwater’s adult return is forecasted to be 14,651 adult fish which is about 6,000 fish less than returned this year. However, we had a similar number of jacks return this year as last year. Let’s hope next year’s return comes in higher than forecasted like occurred this year. For the Rapid River return, the forecasted adult return is 14,283 fish which is much better than what returned this year (5,250). Let’s hope this forecast is accurate as we haven’t seen a return larger than this since 2014. As a reminder, these are just forecasts, and there can be a lot of error around them. However, these forecasts suggest that next year we should be able to provide some decent fishing opportunities for spring Chinook Salmon.

Well, that is it for my spring/summer Chinook Salmon updates. With the fall Chinook Salmon season starting on August 18, and the steelhead catch-and-release opening on July 1, stay tuned for some updates in the near future on these fisheries.

I hope you are all enjoying your summer.