Written by Will Lubenau, University of Idaho
Since the last project update, we met our goal of tagging 1,000 wild steelhead and 200 hatchery steelhead at Lower Granite Dam. As a result, tagging has concluded for 2019. However, not all steelhead that will spawn in Idaho this coming spring have passed Lower Granite Dam. As some of you may know, there are some fish that pass Lower Granite Dam in the spring, not long before they will spawn. So, we will be tagging again starting in March to get that part of the run and wrap up the first season of the project. Tagging some of the late run fish will allow us to better understand how many are caught and provide us with information on their movement through the fishery.
Steelhead from different areas come into Idaho’s fisheries at different times. Some fish, like those bound for the upper Salmon River, show up primarily in the summer months. Others, like steelhead bound for the upper Clearwater River, typically show up after mid-September. To ensure our study represents steelhead from all over Idaho, we have been slowly distributing tags at Lower Granite using the daily numbers of fish passing the dam as a way to decide how many tags should go out each day (see graph). 
After next spring, we will repeat the study again, allowing us to compare information across years and fishing seasons.
As mentioned in prior project updates, when many steelhead from the current run entered Idaho, water temperatures were high in the Snake River. Consequently, steelhead used the cold water of the Clearwater River for a large portion of summer. From July 24th to September 26th all reported tags came from the Clearwater River or the Clearwater and Snake river confluence area. The first reported tagged fish from the Snake River was caught on September 27th. Tagged steelhead were first reported from the Salmon River on October 15th. We have received reports of tagged fish from the mouth of the Salmon River to areas upstream of Salmon, ID. As of November 11th, 19 tags have been reported from the Snake River, 11 tags have been reported from the Salmon River, 4 tags have been reported from the Grande Ronde River, and 1 tag has been reported from the Little Salmon River. We have also had a few tagged hatchery fish get trapped in hatchery broodstock traps.
We would like to remind all anglers that every encountered tag is important to report, and we thank all anglers that have reported tags so far. Additionally, we would like to thank the phenomenal crew at Lower Granite Dam for dedicating so much time and effort to this study!