Steelhead Season Extended, Salmon Starting Slow

Meeting in Moscow April 25-26, the Idaho Fish and Game Commission voted to extend the steelhead season on the Little Salmon River through May 31. Sharon Kiefer, anadromous fisheries manager, told the Commission that a large number of steelhead are still in the Little Salmon and will not be used in the hatchery program. Anglers have been catching steelhead there at a rate of three to five hours per fish, comparable to the best fall fishing. The season was to have ended there April 30. Idaho anglers have enjoyed the largest run of hatchery steelhead on record, about three times the 10-year average, in the 2001-2002 run. In most years, few steelhead are still found in the Little Salmon at the end of the season and the water is traditionally closed to protect salmon runs. With ample fish and the salmon season already underway, there is no reason to halt steelhead fishing on the Little Salmon until the end of May. Kiefer told the Commission that the current projection for salmon coming over Lower Granite Dam into Idaho is 50,200 spring chinook of which about 33,000 will be hatchery fish. The Clearwater drainage should have about 16,000 adipose fin-clipped salmon of which 5,900 will be the state recreational fishery share. The projection for the Snake, Salmon and Little Salmon Rivers is 10,400 of which 4,100 should be available to anglers. Though these numbers are not as high as projections made late last year and are far below the numbers in last year's unprecedented chinook run, Idaho will still have more salmon available to recreational anglers than all of southeast Alaska has, Kiefer noted. The first salmon fishing seasons opened April 20. Few chinook are coming into Idaho rivers yet, however, because of high flows and cool water temperatures. 117,043 have crossed Bonneville Dam and only 786 have come over Lower Granite Dam, but this recent surge indicates the run is on its way to Idaho now.