According to Idaho Fish and Game, Idaho’s 2026 steelhead run is having a year it would probably rather forget. The return is shaping up to be one of the lowest on record, with the A/B Index count at Bonneville Dam currently the lowest seen since the dam was built in 1938. The expected return has been downgraded to just 61,500 fish, and Idaho-bound stocks are following the same rough trend. Because managers are worried about protecting wild steelhead and getting enough hatchery fish back for broodstock, Idaho Fish and Game is cutting the statewide daily bag limit to two steelhead at the end of fishing hours Sept. 17. The Clearwater River and its open tributaries will also have a two-fish daily limit, but only one can be longer than 28 inches.
So what happened? That’s the frustrating part: there’s no smoking fishing rod. Hatchery production and juvenile survival were fairly normal, and while steelhead certainly face plenty of hazards during their freshwater migration, those losses don’t appear big enough to explain this year’s nosedive. Ocean conditions are a much murkier piece of the puzzle, and more than 90% of this year’s returning fish spent two years at sea, where monitoring gets considerably harder. That brings one small silver lining: those 2-ocean fish tend to be bigger, and larger females carry more eggs, which could help hatcheries hit production goals with fewer adults. In short, anglers should expect fewer fish and tighter limits this season, but the steelhead that do show up could have some serious shoulders.
Check out the full 2026 Steelhead Update from Idaho Fish and Game here.
Feature photo via Idaho Fish and Game
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