We're late enough in the run that nearly all the spring Chinook destined for the Clearwater River, Rapid River and Hells Canyon fisheries have passed Lower Granite Dam.
As such, we can now use counts at Lower Granite Dam to determine our harvest shares for these three fisheries (see table below). A few more of these fish may trickle across Lower Granite Dam, but it would only increase harvest shares by a little.
Clearwater River Fishery
The Chinook certainly are moving upriver fast, and many have already reached their final destination. As such, it wasn’t surprising to see harvest drop off in the pass through fisheries (River Sections 1 and 4). What was surprising to me was harvest in the terminal areas wasn’t as high as I thought it would be (see Table below). As such, there is no need to close down any river sections or change the rules for this next 4-day interval as there are no concerns about exceeded our harvest share. In fact, depending on what type of harvest occurs this week, we will evaluate if reopening section 2 is a possibility (Cherrylane Bridge to Orofino Bridge). The best catch rates we observed last week were around Dworshak ( 13-15 hrs/fish) although the South Fork (20 hrs/fish) and around Clear Creek (22 hrs/fish) were not far behind.
For those of you who have been waiting for the summer Chinook Salmon fishery in the Lochsa River, it will open this Saturday, June 23. We don’t have a lot of harvest share (50-100 fish), so don’t expect this season to last very long. If you forgot what the rules are, a quick summary is as follows:
- Open 7 days a week
- Daily limit is 4 fish, only one of which may be and adult
- Possession limit is three times the daily limit
- You can use bait, but only when fishing for Salmon
Details should be provided shortly on our website.
Rapid River Fishery
Good news! We have 476 fish left in our harvest share (see table below), so no additional closures or rules changes will occur to this fishery for the next 4-day interval.
Harvest dropped last week in the lower Salmon River which wasn’t too surprising seeing we restricted the area one could fish (upper Twin Bridge to Shorts Creek), the days you could fish (Thursday through Saturday), and your limit (1 adult per day). Catch rates actually improved in Section 2 (upper Twin Bridge to Time Zone Bridge) last week to 12 hrs/fish, whereas it decreased in the Park Hole area to 28 hrs/fish. The Little Salmon was the busy area last week as it received more effort than the entire lower Salmon River combined. For this reason, this is where most the fish were caught, although you still had to put your time in to catch them (catch rates averaged 18 hrs/fish). These fish are moving up river fast, so I expect the bulk of the fish will be around Riggins for this next 4-day interval. However, if you like to fish away from the crowds, the tail end of the run should still be migrating through section 2.
Hells Canyon Fishery
With broodstock tapping in full swing last week, it was not surprising that fishing (the catching part) became more difficult in the Hells Canyon Fishery. We estimated that only 7 fish were harvested, and catch rates averaged 106 hrs/fish. This fishery never really took off this year. I suspect it has a lot to do with the low return that is occurring there this year. Because of the low harvest (43 for the entire year), this fishery will remain open for at least another week.
Have a great week everybody.