Hi everyone, this is the Upper Salmon River steelhead fishing report for October 17th, 2023. The data discussed in this report was collected between Monday, October 9th and Sunday, October 15th.

Steelhead angler effort along the Upper Salmon River increased a moderate amount during the past week, with the majority of anglers observed downstream of North Fork. Upstream of North Fork, angler effort remained low for most of the week before increasing on Sunday.

Catch rates improved compared to the week before, and anglers reported catching steelhead in all areas downstream of the Lemhi River. Anglers interviewed downstream of the Middle Fork Salmon River in location code 14 averaged 15 hours per steelhead caught, and anglers interviewed downstream of North Fork in location code 15 averaged 35 hours per steelhead caught. Anglers interviewed upstream of North Fork in location code 16 averaged 38 hours per steelhead caught. Only three interviews were obtained from anglers fishing upstream of the Lemhi River in location code 17, and no anglers interviewed in this area reported catching a steelhead.

River conditions remained favorable throughout the week. Currently, the Salmon River is flowing at 1,250 cfs through the town of Salmon, ID which is 97 percent of average for today’s date. The river had clear visibility in all areas over the weekend, and water temperatures were in the low-50s. For up-to-date river flow and temperature data, anglers can follow this link to view the USGS stream gauge near Shoup (site # 13307000).

The last item we wanted to mention in this week’s report is that five PIT-tagged steelhead were detected over the weekend at the Elevenmile PIT tag array, located approximately 11 miles upstream of Salmon, ID. Anglers interested in checking these detections themselves can do so on the PTAGIS website by following these steps:

1. Go to PTAGIS.org and select “Observations” in the dropdown menu under “Data”.
2. Under “Active Sites”, scroll down and find “USE-Upper Salmon River at rkm 437” to select the Elevenmile site.
3. Choose your desired time period and click “Submit”.
4. The search results will display all the PIT tag detections within your selected time frame.
5. If needed, filter the results by species by selecting a species name under “Tags per Species”.
6. To distinguish between juvenile and adult fish, click on a specific tag code to check the “Complete Tag History”. This will show the species, tagging date, tagging location, and detection history for each tag.