Anglers looking forward to the summer salmon season have reason for cautious optimism as the latest Upper Salmon River Chinook numbers outpace initial expectations. While preseason forecasts for the Sawtooth and Pahsimeroi returns were initially discouraging, recent passage data from the Bonneville Dam shows an encouraging uptick, particularly for the Sawtooth stock. Idaho Department of Fish and Game (IDFG) officials are closely monitoring these early runs to determine harvest shares, with formal fishing proposals expected to develop over the next ten days.
Here’s the latest report from Idaho Fish and Game:
Many of you have been eagerly waiting for an update on the upper Salmon River Chinook run and the potential for fisheries we may be able to offer this summer. Like you, we are anxiously watching dam counts and fish passage at Bonneville Dam on the Columbia River.
Our preseason forecasts for Chinook returning to Sawtooth and Pahsimeroi were not too encouraging. Based on the initial forecast, we did not anticipate having any surplus hatchery fish to provide a fishing season at Sawtooth but were optimistic about a small fishery on the Pahsimeroi stock. But as we’ve been watching passage over Bonneville Dam for the past few weeks, things are looking more encouraging for the upper Salmon returns.
Based on historical timing, we are at about the 50% mark for the Sawtooth run at Bonneville Dam. To date, we’ve been pleasantly surprised with number of Sawtooth fish crossing Bonneville. The pre-season forecast for Sawtooth was 1,978 fish at Bonneville, and so far, we’ve estimated 1,678 have already crossed. Based on this return to date and average historical run timing, we estimate a total return of about 3,600 Sawtooth Chinook if the run timing is average. If the run is late, which I don’t expect, it could be larger (~6,500), and if it’s early, which seems more likely, it will be less, at around 2,400 fish. Since it appears the run will land somewhere between the early and average timing, our harvest share will likely be between 400 and 800 fish.
The figure below shows the timing of the current Sawtooth adult Chinook return (dashed black line) at Bonneville Dam in comparison to the average return from 2009 – 2025 (red line). The gray line shows the 2016 return as an example of an earlier and larger return, and the blue line represents 2025 as a later arriving average return. The dotted horizontal line is the 2026 pre-season forecast.
Regarding the Pahsimeroi, the preseason forecast was 1,659 at Bonneville, which would result in a small surplus of about 270 fish above our broodstock needs and provide a harvest share of approximately 135 fish for both tribal and non-tribal fisheries. Based on historic timing, we are still early in the Pahsimeroi run, with only about 12% of the run crossing Bonneville so far. On average, about half of the Pahsimeroi return has crossed Bonneville by the first week of June, so we have some time before we’ll know more about the Pahsimeroi return. To date, we’ve seen a hand full of tags, and the coming few weeks will tell us a lot more.
Right now, we’re still watching the return over Bonneville, and IDFG staff will develop proposals over the next week to ten days based on what happens. The IDFG Commission will convene to hear about any potential summer Chinook salmon fishery proposals for the upper Salmon River and other areas.
As most of you know, the number of wild fish returning will dictate the location of the lower boundary for any fishery we propose. Unfortunately, wild fish returns are relatively low this year, so it’s likely that any fishery we have will be limited to the upper reaches near Stanley. If we can propose a fishery on the Pahsimeroi stock, that will likely open later and be focused on a small reach of the Salmon River below the mouth of the Pahsimeroi.
If you have questions, comments, or would like to be added to my email update list, please reach out to me at: greg.schoby@idfg.idaho.gov or call the Salmon Regional Office at (208) 756-2271.
