Steelhead Limits Raised

Meeting by conference call August 27, the Idaho Fish and Game Commission raised the limits for the fall steelhead fishing season. The fall season opens Sept. 1. The daily bag limit will be three, the possession limit nine, and the season limit will be 20. Without the commission action, limits would have been two, four and 10, respectively. As of August 24, 227,000 steelhead have been counted at Bonneville Dam on the Columbia River. Seventy-one percent of those are hatchery A-run fish. The 10-year average is 161,000, A and B runs, hatchery and wild fish combined. At Lower Granite Dam, the last dam on the Snake River that the fish must pass to get to Idaho, 6,700 steelhead have been counted, compared to a 10-year average of 5,400. The current forecast for total run size above Lower Granite Dam is 151,000, compared to a 10-year average of 101,000. If the forecast is accurate, it will be the third-largest run over Lower Granite since the dam was built in 1975. The success of this year's run can be attributed to good river flows that aided the young fish as they migrated to the ocean, and good conditions in the ocean which helped survival. All other rules in the current 2002-2003 fishing rules and seasons that apply to steelhead (pages 57-59) remain the same.