Spring Chinook Salmon Fishing Update 5/8/2024: Rapid River Run, Hells Canyon, and Clearwater River Fisheries

I do what to bring to your attention that if the harvest shares listed above are fairly accurate, we may want to adjust the season for the Clearwater River return fishery. If you read my first update (Chinook update 4-25-24), you may recall that I presented “harvest matrixes” for each of the fisheries that describes the seasons and limits anglers want us to apply based on the harvest share. The harvest matrix for the Clearwater River return fishery suggests that if the harvest share is greater than 2,000 adult fish, anglers would prefer a 7-day/week fishery. Right now, we are projecting the Clearwater River Return fishery will have a harvest share of 3,789 fish. If this harvest share does not drop by next week, this information will be presented to the commission (on May 16) so they can discuss if this fishery should be expanded from a 4-days/week fishery to a 7-days/week (except for the North Fork). We will keep you informed on any decisions that are made.

Fisheries

Last week we observed the first harvested spring Chinook Salmon of the year. This fish was caught in the lower Clearwater River, and we estimate that a total of two fish were harvested. It looks like by this weekend daily counts of adult Chinook Salmon at Lower Granite Dam could start exceeding 500 fish which should improve fishing. However, it is difficult to project fish passage right now as counts at the dams downstream of Lower Granite are bouncing up and down due to changes in flows, changes in spill, a temporary power house outage, and changing fisheries. For those who like to fish the Salmon River, give it another week, and some of the fish passing over Lower Granite Dam should start reaching the lower end of the fishery.

 

Good luck fishing!