Fall Chinook Harvest Season Closed

Salmon fishing in Idaho is over statewide for the year. The fall Chinook harvest season on the Snake River - the first such season in decades - ended Friday, October 31. The season opened October 3, on the Snake River from Lewiston upstream to Hells Canyon Dam. Anglers caught and kept 132 marked adult and jack fall Chinook in the Snake, and they released 409 adult and jack salmon during 21,749 hours of angler effort. Hatchery-origin fish are marked with a clipped adipose fin. The fall Chinook run in the Snake River was protected as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act in 1992. More than 16,000 fall hatchery-origin Chinook crossed Lower Granite Dam, and an estimated 6,500 returned to the Snake River above Lewiston this fall. Many of the hatchery fish available for harvest in the Snake River were released as part of an effort to mitigate effects of construction of Snake River Dams