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Ecology and salmon related articles

No Chinook Fishing on
South Fork Salmon, Upper Salmon Rivers

by Katie Kloppenburg
KIVI TV, June 25, 2019

Adult returns of wild Salmon and Steelhead from 1962 to 2018 based on counts at the uppermost Lower Snake River Dam.  Four were constructed in the sixties and seventies and populations have been below historic levels ever since. (Source: Idaho Fish & Game's Master dataset) After monitoring low Chinook counts over the Columbia and Snake River dams, Idaho Fish and Game fishery managers have decided not to have a summer Chinook fishing season on the South Fork of the Salmon River. This is due to a lack of harvestable hatchery fish.

Chinook fishing has been very limited this year, with the only Chinook fishing currently open on the Middle Fork of the Clearwater River. There was a brief fishing season on the Lower Salmon and Little Salmon rivers.

While lack of a fishing season on the South Fork Salmon is disappointing for anglers, fishery managers expect enough hatchery Chinook to return to the South Fork to meet broodstock needs at the McCall Hatchery.

Those fish will produce the next generation of young salmon to be released, which will hopefully provide fishing opportunity in the future.


Katie Kloppenburg
No Chinook Fishing on South Fork Salmon, Upper Salmon Rivers <-- Watch at orginal site.
KIVI TV, June 25, 2019

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