Little Salmon River (Rapid River Run)

Over the last 4-day fishing interval on the Little Salmon River (June 10 – 13), catch rates were the best we’ve seen so far this season. We estimated 3,300 hours of angling effort during the 4-day period, and 220 adult Chinook Salmon harvested, for an average catch rate of 15 hours per fish.

So far this season, we’ve estimated a total of 750 adults harvested from the Little Salmon River, and 900 adults harvested from the Lower Salmon River, for a combined total of 1,650 adults harvested from the Rapid River stock. This leaves approximately 100 adults remaining in the Rapid River harvest share this year. As a result, there will be two more days (Thursday and Friday) of Chinook fishing on Rapid River stock before the fishery is closed for the season. The Little Salmon River will close to fishing for Chinook Salmon at the end of fishing hours (10pm) this Friday, June 18.

As we near the end of this Chinook fishing season on the Rapid River run, I’d like to share a few highlights.

First, despite relatively low harvest share again this year, we actually got a lot of fishing days in. The season was open a total of 22 days on the Lower Salmon River and 31 days on the Little Salmon River. Of course not all of those days produced good fishing – in total we saw approximately 12 days of good fishing on the Lower Salmon River and 22 days of good fishing on the Little Salmon. This year was a great example of how implementing restrictions to the number of days folks can fish each week and reducing daily bag limits to 1 adult can help increase the overall number of fishing days in a season.

Second, as you’re all aware, we strive to split the Rapid River harvest share allocation 50:50 between the Lower Salmon River and the Little Salmon River. When all is said and done, we came darn close to hitting that goal. Depending on how many fish are harvested on the Little Salmon river during these last two days of the fishery (this Thursday and Friday), we’re probably going to be looking at approximately 51:49 allocation between the Lower Salmon and Little Salmon, respectively.

South Fork Salmon River

Hopefully you all enjoyed fishing the Lower and Little Salmon this season, and are now looking forward to fishing the South Fork of the Salmon. Opening weekend for Chinook fishing on the South Fork of the Salmon River is Saturday, June 26 and Sunday, June 27. Fish are already moving into the fishery area, and we expect catch rates to be very good on opening weekend. Anticipated harvest share for the South Fork Salmon River fishery this year is between 350 and 450 adults. After opening weekend we will assess how many fish remain in the harvest share, and will re-open the fishery 4-days per week (Friday through Monday) on Friday, July 2 as long as we are not at risk of exceeding harvest share.

I’ll continue to provide weekly updates to let you all know where we’re at in terms of estimated harvest, updates to harvest share, and an anticipated closure date. In the meantime, I hope to see some of you out on the Little Salmon for the last two days of the fishery (this Thursday and Friday), and I’m especially excited to see you all on the South Fork next weekend.

As always, please pass along the link to this blog to anyone you think may be interested in this information. Additionally, feel free to reach out to me with any questions, comments, or concerns.

Have a great rest of your week!