October 25, 2012
By Niels Nokkentved, IDFG
Salmon fishing in Idaho will be over for the year when the fall Chinook
harvest season on the Snake and Clearwater rivers ends Wednesday, Oct. 31.
The season opened Sept. 1, on the Snake River between Lewiston and Hells
Canyon Dam and, this year, in the lower Clearwater River downstream of the U.S.
Highway 12 Memorial Bridge in Lewiston.
As of Oct. 22, anglers had caught 62 marked adults and 60 jacks fall
Chinook and caught and released 235 unmarked fish in the lower Clearwater River.
They caught and kept 382 adults and 486 jacks in the Snake River, for a total of
868 fish. Hatchery-origin fish are marked with a clipped adipose fin.
This year, almost 41,000 adult fall hatchery-origin Chinook and more than
12,600 jacks crossed Lower Granite Dam, many of them returned to the Snake River
above Lewiston.
The fall
Chinook run in the Snake River was protected as a threatened species under the
Endangered Species Act in 1992.