Personally, I am somewhat skeptical of this projection because my preseason forecast, based on the number of PIT tagged 1-ocean fish that returned last year, suggested just over 8,000 2-ocean fish would return this year. The biggest difference I have seen between our preseason forecast and what actually returned was around 14,000 fish. If this return to Bonneville Dam ends up being 34,000 fish, that would be around 25,000 more fish than forecasted which is unprecedented. Regardless, it is safe to assume that enough steelhead will be returning to the Clearwater River basin to meet broodstock goals and provide ample fishing opportunity. Even if the return to Bonneville Dams ends up around 20,000 fish, that will still provide a good steelhead fishery with no reductions to daily limits being necessary.

Steelhead Fisheries

The harvest fishery opens on September 1 in the Snake River, Salmon River, Clearwater River below Memorial Bridge, and North Fork Clearwater River.  Then on September 10, the rest of the Clearwater River basin opens to harvest. I wouldn’t expect the harvest opener to be red hot this year.  Right now (June 15 through August 29), about 2,700 steelhead have passed over Lower Granite Dam which is about half as many as passed over last year at this time. The good news is that because the hatchery return to the Clearwater River is early, these fish will start showing up sooner than normal and provide some nice sized fish to catch. Right now, only about 100 Clearwater fish have passed over Lower Granite Dam (based on PIT tags), but by the time we reach late September, I suspect over 5,000 will have passed over the dam. 

As I indicated earlier, we are not making any changes to our steelhead regulations at this point. However, I encourage you to click on this link to brush up on what the steelhead regulations are: steelhead seasons and rules. We made some significant changes to the steelhead regulations last year that some of you may not be familiar with.

Good luck fishing!