Upper Salmon River Chinook Fishery update - 7/3/2025

Hi everyone,

During the second week of the Upper Salmon River Chinook Salmon fishery (6/24 to 6/29/25) we estimated that anglers harvested 163 hatchery adult salmon and 31 hatchery jack salmon. Anglers also released an estimated 11 hatchery adult salmon, 8 hatchery jack salmon, and 23 unclipped adult salmon. Angler effort increased considerably, and we estimated that anglers fished for 2,390 hours between Monday and Sunday which produced an average catch rate of 10 hours per salmon caught and a harvest rate of 12 hours per salmon kept. 

I also want to mention that due to additional e-tagging data that was collected last week, we revised our estimate for the first interval of the fishery (6/19-6/22/25) down to 10 hatchery adults from the 17 that we reported last week. This brought the season total through Sunday June 29th to 173 harvested adult salmon.

 

RUN and HARVEST SHARE UPDATE

We did not see any additional PIT tags at Bonneville Dam over the past week, so our estimate of 2,400 Sawtooth Hatchery adults remains unchanged. While it could still happen, we are not expecting to see this number change this late into the season. We are still anticipating the harvest share for the fishery to land somewhere between 400 to 500 salmon which means that as of last Sunday, there was still over half the harvest share remaining. 

 

RIVER CONDITIONS

Flows on the Upper Salmon River continue to be well below average and as of today, it is flowing at 1,100 cfs at the gauge below the Yankee Fork which is 52% of the long-term average. The visibility remained clear throughout the past week, and we expect the good fishing conditions to continue through this coming weekend.

 

HATCHERY TRAPPING & RECYCLING

The Sawtooth Fish Hatchery has trapped 944 hatchery adult Chinook Salmon as of July 2nd. Updated hatchery trapping numbers can be found on the IDFG Hatchery Returns webpage so make sure to bookmark that page if you want to stay up-to-date with the trapping totals.

Sawtooth Hatchery staff will recycle approximately 100 hatchery adult salmon and 150 hatchery jacks back into the river on Friday, July 4th. We would expect the recycled fish to start making their way through the fishery area by the following day.

 

RULES 

The 2025 USR salmon fishery is open from the posted boundary approximately 50 yards upstream of the Yankee Fork Salmon River upstream to the posted boundary approximately 100 yards downstream of the weir and trap at the Sawtooth Fish Hatchery. Fishing hours are from 5:30am to 10:00 pm MDT. The daily limit is four (4) hatchery Chinook salmon per day, only two (2) of which may be adults (over 24 inches). For the full season rules, please click here.

If you have questions, comments, or would like to be added to my email update list, please reach out to me at: greg.schoby@idfg.idaho.gov or at the Salmon Regional Office at (208) 756-2271.