Riggins Reels 'Em In

By Sue Nass "This is my ninth fish right here," Boise angler Michael Kendall said as he held up a big salmon. "Yeah, they're just outstanding this year. There's more fish than anyone knows what to do with!" Even on a weekday, eager anglers crowd the banks of the Salmon River. Some, like Kendall, set their alarms for 3 a.m. so they could leave Boise in time to arrive at the small town of Riggins by dawn. It's the best salmon season in decades and the word is out. It was this uproar that brought Casey Anderson, also from Boise, here the first time. "We were here last weekend and caught a couple so we thought we'd get back." It has paid off. Anderson said he has a freezer full of salmon back in Boise and today he holds up another beauty, "Oh, I got him about an hour and a half ago. I think it's probably close to 20 pounds." But it is not only the anglers who are reeling them in. The town itself is booming. Rex Ann Zimmerman of the Hook, Line and Sinker Riggins Tackle Shop estimates that the town's business has tripled in the last month. "It's fantastic, absolutely wonderful. Everybody's busy, motels--no vacancy, you have to call ahead of time. I know Trump's service station ran out of gas the other day. Totally surprised!" But she doesn't spend all her time selling salmon tackle; sometimes she uses it herself. Earlier in the week, she caught four fish in two hours, "What's it like to catch salmon? Oh, it's a rush! It's fun, it's excellent! Across the street, Jack Darrah, owner of the Riggins Motel compares this year's salmon season with the frenzy of the 1849. "It's almost like a gold rush. I don't know how else to describe it. It's phenomenal," he said. "We've been doing extremely well. I just looked in the book and it's been four solid weeks of full or almost full every day." The large number of salmon migrating from the ocean this year is a result of a large outgoing juvenile migration in 1999. Good river conditions when the smolts migrated downstream to the ocean, along with favorable ocean conditions, resulted in a higher survival rate. The result is a much larger adult return with more than 136,000 chinook salmon across Lower Granite Dam before the Memorial Day weekend. "It's been decades since we had a season quite this good. We had a pretty good year in 1997, we had a hatchery season at that point, but it pales in comparison to this year's," said Evin Oneale, Fish and Game Regional Educator. "Lots of folks from everywhere are converging on Riggins. Because right now this is where the action is although they're doing very, very well up on the Clearwater as well." Kim Williams drove over all the way from Firth, near Idaho Falls, with a couple of friends. He's already landed three fish since dawn. "We saw in the newspaper here a month or two months ago that there was going to be a lot of fish coming up. I think I'll be up next week too," he laughed. Only hatchery salmon may be kept in this year's season. They can be identified because they are missing the adipose fin, which was clipped off before these salmon left the fish hatchery as juveniles. Wild salmon must be returned to the water unharmed to continue their spawning migration. The statewide season limit is 40. Since 20 salmon can be recorded on one permit, a second salmon permit must be purchased to keep 40 fish. All salmon harvested statewide must be included in the season limit.