Hi everybody, it is time for my weekly spring Chinook Salmon update (6/9/2020).
If you were planning to fish the lower Salmon River this weekend, please be sure to read the “Rapid River Fishery” section as we are closing down a section of the Salmon River to Chinook Salmon fishing.
Run Size and Harvest Shares
I have had some people asking me whether the increase in counts at Bonneville Dam over the last week will be increasing our harvest shares for the Rapid River run fishery (see red line in Figure below). Unfortunately, most of these fish are not destined for Idaho. The last PIT tagged fish destined for Rapid River past over Bonneville Dam a week ago. We haven’t seen a Rapid River PIT tagged fish since. There have been some PIT tagged fish destined for the upper Salmon River and South Fork Salmon River, but not near as many as we would like to see. Many of the Chinook Salmon that have passed over Bonneville Dam in the last week are upper Columbia River summer Chinook Salmon.
Updates to the PIT tag data collected at Bonneville Dam are shown in the table below. Harvest shares for the Rapid River return (lower Salmon and Little Salmon rivers) and Hells Canyon fishery are about the same as I reported last week (625 for the Rapid River return and 199 for Hells Canyon). If you look at the second and third columns in this table you will notice that the “Current Bonneville PIT Tag Estimate” and “Projected PIT Estimate at Bonneville” are almost identical. That is because Idaho’s spring Chinook Salmon run over Bonneville Dam is basically over. Very likely we will switch how we calculate our harvest shares next week by using data collected at Lower Granite Dam. By then most of the spring run Chinook will have entered Idaho and we won’t have to evaluate how many fish will make the migration from Bonneville Dam to Lower Granite Dam. I am telling you this because when we switch over to using data collected at Lower Granite Dam, it could cause our harvest share to change some although I don’t expect it to be by a lot.
Rapid River Fishery
It seems like these past few weeks the weather has been great on Thursday and Friday and then it rained on the weekend. It certainly hasn’t made for the best fishing conditions, but it has kept effort and harvest down and allowed us to keep the fishery open longer. Last weekend we estimated 115 fish were harvested with catch in the Little Salmon finally picking up (see Table below). Catch rates averaged around 20 hours/fish in most reaches which is about as good as we have seen it this years. Our estimated harvest for the year is now at 213 fish which pushes us over one third of the way to reaching our harvest share (currently 625 fish).
Last week I let people know that the timing of when upriver stocks will be entering the lower Salmon River would play a role in whether we would keep the Salmon River open. Based on PIT tag detection at Lower Granite Dam, we expect fish destined for Pahsimeroi and Sawtooth hatcheries to start entering the lower Salmon River this weekend. Over the last 8 days, PIT tag detections indicate that 738 adult fish destined for Rapid River hatchery and 504 fish destined for the upper Salmon River have passed over Lower Granite Dam. Because we don’t want to create a bigger shortage in broodstock needs at Pahsimeroi Hatchery and take away from a small potential fishery in the Stanley area, we will be closing a reach of the lower Salmon River to salmon fishing. Specifically, we are closing the Salmon River from Rice Creek Bridge to Hammer Creek Boat Ramp to fishing for all Chinook Salmon effective tomorrow (June 10, 2020). The Salmon River from Hammer Creek Boat Ramp to Time Zone Bridge and the Little Salmon River (upstream of the Big Salmon Road Bridge) will remain open this weekend.
I mentioned last week that some Chinook Salmon were having trouble finding their way past Little Goose Dam (the dam just downstream of Lower Granite Dam) which was causing fish to stack up there. Well, that issue was solved. If you were watching dam counts, you probably noticed a surge of fish that pushed past Lower Granite Dam over the last six day. The front edge of that surge will likely be entering the lower Salmon River this weekend (the section we closed) and hitting the Little Salmon River in two weekends.
Once again, it is supposed to rain this weekend and flows on the Salmon River will be fluctuating between 38,000 and 47,000 cfs. By the weekend, the flow in the Salmon River are projected to be around 40,000 cfs. Last weekend flows were around 45,000 cfs. Flows on the Little Salmon are have dropped since last week (~2,800 cfs) to 1,800 cfs which is good. The forecasted rain is expected to cause flow to increase and peak on Saturday night at about 2,300 cfs. We will see how much this effects fishing.
Hells Canyon Fishery
Catch rates improved last week below Hells Canyon Dam to around 16 hours a fish. The main reason for this is people decided to fish elsewhere as effort was fairly light. We estimated that 17 adult Chinook Salmon were caught last week bringing the total harvest for the year to 68 fish. We are still well short of the harvest share which is currently at 199 fish. That means this fishery will remain open for at least another week.
Take care everybody.