Chinook Salmon

Commission to meet via conference call June 23

The Idaho Fish and Game Commission will meet by conference call Friday, June 23 to adopt the Price Lock order to discount license, tag, and permit fees with consecutive year purchases. An update concerning the Chinook salmon season will also be included.

The call will begin at 8:30 a.m. (MST) at Fish and Game Headquarters, 600 S. Walnut in Boise.

There will be no public testimony taken during the call, but the public is welcome to attend. Those living outside of Boise can listen to the call by traveling to their nearest Fish and Game regional office.

Trailers clip millions of fins so anglers can spot the keepers

Here's your task: Clip millions of tiny fins off young salmon and steelhead so they can be identified as hatchery fish when they return from the ocean. Do it in a few months and at nine different hatcheries from Springfield to Orofino.

South Fork of the Salmon River will not open for Chinook fishing

A poor return to the South Fork of the Salmon River means anglers will miss a year of Chinook fishing on the popular river, but anglers can still get a crack at the fish.

Sawtooth Hatchery raises mountain-climbing Chinook salmon

The fishing season for Chinook in the Upper Salmon River opens June 22.

Chinook Fishing Update (6/12/17)

This update is to let you know about Chinook fishing closures in the Clearwater River drainage. The following sections which were open for jack harvest, will not re-open this coming Thursday.

Clearwater Chinook Weekly Report (6/12/17)

This past week we documented harvest on creel section 1,4, & 5. Hog Island was still the best area to catch a Chinook on creel section 1. Anglers on creel section 4 were using bobbers and egg clusters and had the best success fishing in back eddies. Creel section 5 saw more pressure around the Skipping Stones Rest Stop and below Clear Creek on the South side of the river. The South Fork did not document any harvest this past week but the fish that were caught and released were caught on spinners.

Chinook summer opportunities begin June 22

On Friday, June 2, the Idaho Fish and Game commission acted on Chinook salmon seasons.

The first step was reopening some opportunities on the previously closed Clearwater, Lochsa, and Little Salmon rivers. 

The second action, was to set the seasons for summer run Chinook on the Upper Salmon and South Fork Salmon rivers. Those will begin June 22nd and more information will be coming out next week.

Chinook fishing reopens on Clearwater, Salmon and Little Salmon rivers on June 3

The reopened spring fishing season will target jack Chinook in the Clearwater River and adult and jack hatchery Chinook in the Salmon and Little Salmon rivers. Fishing will be limited to Thursday through Sunday weekly. 

Chinook run is late, below forecast and fishing could end soon

Anglers should soon know the fate of the 2017 spring Chinook run, and how much longer the spring fishing season will continue. 

Spring Chinook Fishery Update (5/15/17)

Time for the weekly check-in on the Idaho spring Chinook fishery. As you may expect if you’ve been keeping an eye on Chinook counts over Lower Granite Dam, Idaho spring Chinook fisheries have remained pretty quiet with no documented harvest to date. As of yesterday, there were 191 Chinook over Lower Granite for the season. Looking a bit farther downriver in the Lower Snake, there have been just over 2,000 Chinook over Ice Harbor Dam with counts increasing to 300-400 fish per day over the past four days. This is likely the front end of the peak we saw at Bonneville about ten days ago.