Good news for anglers: the salmon are officially showing up faster than they can be caught.
Week two of the upper Salmon River Chinook fishery is in the books, and the math is looking highly favorable for fishermen. Catch rates cut right in half over the past week (meaning less waiting and more action), and roughly 67% of the harvest share is still left up for grabs. Plus, with the hatchery team about to drop a little early July 4th bonus back into the water, the latest data, river conditions, and upcoming weekend forecast are looking prime:
Here’s the latest update by Idaho Fish and Game for the upper Salmon River Chinook fishery, with the most recent numbers through Sunday June 28, 2026.
Through the first two weeks of the fishery, we estimate:
Anglers harvested 68 hatchery adult salmon and released an estimated 17 unclipped adult salmon.
Angler effort over the past week was 2,019 hours (a slight increase from the 1,343 hours estimated during the opening Thursday – Sunday)
Angler catch rates improved from 73 hours per salmon caught during the opening weekend to 36 hours per salmon caught this past week.
Harvest share remains at 204, so with an estimated season harvest to date of 68 we have only harvested about 33% of our harvest share.
RUN TIMING and HARVEST SHARE UPDATE
We have not observed any additional PIT tags at Bonneville Dam over the past week, so our estimate of 2,012 Sawtooth Hatchery adults remains unchanged. Our harvest share for the fishery is 204 fish, and as mentioned above, we still have about 67% of that left (136 adult hatchery chinook).
Of the estimated 2,012 adult hatchery Chinook returning to Sawtooth Hatchery:
Approximately 1,454 Sawtooth Chinook have crossed over Lower Granite Dam (LGD).
Two PIT tagged fish that remained at large were observed at LGD last week, bringing our season conversion (survival) from Bonneville to LGD (77%) right in line with the 5-year average conversion rate (78%).
We continue to see Sawtooth bound fish at the instream PIT tag array on the Salmon River near Elevenmile (approximately eleven miles upstream of the town of Salmon). The top panel of the figure below shows streamflow (blue line) at the Salmon River gauge at Salmon for the last thirty days, as well as adult Chinook PIT tag detections for both hatchery (green bars) and wild (black bars) Chinook at the Elevenmile array. I’ve added the daily trapping totals at Sawtooth hatchery to the bottom panel of the figure.
HATCHERY TRAPPING & RECYCLING
The Sawtooth Fish Hatchery has trapped 705 hatchery adult Chinook Salmon as of June 29th. Updated hatchery trapping numbers can be found on the IDFG Hatchery Returns webpage so make sure to bookmark that page if you want to stay up-to-date with the trapping totals.
Sawtooth Hatchery staff will recycle approximately 70 hatchery jacks back into the river on Friday, July 3rd. We would expect the recycled fish to start making their way through the fishery area by the following day.
RIVER CONDITIONS
Like much of Idaho, the upper Salmon River basin experienced heavy rains and fresh high-elevation snow last Friday through Monday. Flows on the upper Salmon River increased because of this, but despite the increase, they continue to be slightly below average. The figures below show the Salmon River flows near the Yankee Fork Salmon River and the flows in Valley Creek, which are more representative of the flows seen in the fishery. The visibility remained clear throughout the past week, and we expect good fishing conditions for this coming weekend.
PAHSIMEROI UPDATE
In Pahsimeroi news, we have not detected anymore tagged Pahsimeroi fish at Bonneville so our in-season estimate remains at 191, and based on PIT tag detections, only 65 Pahsimeroi fish are over Lower Granite Dam. Both of these numbers are certainly an underestimate of the overall Pahsimeroi return, as hatchery staff have trapped 185 adult Chinook at the facility to date. PIT tags continue to under-represent this hatchery return, and based on the trapping numbers above, we’re hopeful that we can meet our broodstock need at Pahsimeroi this year and continue to rebuild this return.
I’ll continue to provide updates on the Pahsimeroi return, and trapping numbers will be updated on our website as traps are checked and the data is uploaded.
