Any King action yet??

[Rockjmpr]

Hey I was wondering if anyone has gone after the Kings yet and how it's looking?? Any inputs would be great. I probably can't get out til begining June but I'm very, very anxious, anything???[]
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[chrome_junky]

i havnt been yet but i know they have had over 13000 fish cross the bonneville damn this month.
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[Got_Bait]

Don't worry buddy, your not going to miss a single thing before you can go in the first part of June. . . . unless you have a jetter and/or know some real pros who nail em on the Clearwater between Orofino and Lewiston, cuz it's a whole different ball game over there. They should be picking them up there Memorialish though. Plus it's looking like we might be having one of the smallest runs in recent years rather that one of the larger runs in recent years unless we start having some HUGE, HUGE, days at Bonneville REAL SOON! I'm talking multiple 10,000+ days and probably some 20,000 class days as well - at least if we are going to meet their Lower Granite forecasts. Right now the biggest day we have seen is 2142 last Thursday [mad].
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[Rockjmpr]

Cool thanks, I hear they are late so I'm hoping they will hit the 10,000 range all of a sudden. I'm also hoping the forecasts hold true and we have an awesome run this year. Maybe they will be fighting for room it will be so cramped up with Kings in the rivers[laugh]
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[Rockjmpr]

Well that sounds great, thanks for the info. I'm hoping we do get the run they predicted this year.
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[redbeard1]

Oh it will be, lets think possitive[]. I'll catch some on Memorial weekend in Riggins.[cool]
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[wormsinker]

dont count me out redbeard i would love to out fish you again as usual. Just kiding[][]
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[Rockjmpr]

Yea I'm working my tail off around the house building up on that weekend pass from the wife so I can get up to Riggins as soon as they start to show. You know I'll post whatever I can for info as soon as I get out, so keep me posted if you guys find'em...I have a buddy in Kooskia as well who is keeping an eye on the S/F Clearwater for us. Which by the way still has great steelhead fishing if the water flow will allow you to get one through the current[]
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[Got_Bait]

redbeard1:

[shocked]Well I'll probly be there then too. Maybe we'll run into each other (unless I freak out and blast up to Orofino). That would be cool though, cuz it seems like we fish alot of the same places, and maybe I could learn a thing or two from ya.[angelic]
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[Rockjmpr]

Rdbrd, looks like I have family time on Memorial day so if you don't mind please post a report or let me know how it goes if you get out for the kings. Like I said I will get info on S/F Clearwater when the time is upon us, I have a retired guide friend living in Kooskia ID.
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[Got_Bait]

Sometimes the fishing is decent on the SF Cw a week or 10 days earlier than Riggins.

Also I have a degree in fisheries from USU and I'm a total numbers cruncher, so I have some really extensive excell spreadsheets on these Idaho Chinook. I have tracked the dam passage at Bonneville, Ice Harbor, and Lower Granite in 1997, and 2000-current, and a whole bunch of other stuff including PIT tag passage, river mile data, travel rates, river flows, and a record of every salmon I have ever tagged in Idaho since 2000.

Just recently I came up with some kinda interesting figures. In all the years that I have tracked the dam passage, an average of 27.8 % (low of 15% and high of 41%) of the fish that cross Bonneville cross Lower Granite ( huh?[pirate]) Also right now, 27.6% of the PIT tagged fish that have crossed Bonneville are destined for the Rapid River Hatchery; which should project to close to 27.6% of the total Bonneville passage to date. Last year 71.7% of the Rapid River Hatchery PIT tagged fish that crossed Bonneville, made it over Lower Granite as well.
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[Rockjmpr]

Hey that's great info. your the kind of guy I like to have in my corner[sly]. One thing though...I'm not a number cruncher so in laymans terms what does the percentage of the fish that cross Bonneville and also cross Lower Granite mean? you made it sound like a bad thing, why is this? I am seriously interested in making a better fishery in ID (especialy preserving what we already have) so I'm trying to understand better.
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[Got_Bait]

Well I have alot of guys (who don't have internet access) asking me at this stage of the run, how many fish are crossing Bonneville each day, and how many total have crossed it. Well, those numbers don't really serve alot of purpose unless we have an idea of how many of them we Idaho anglers are really going to get a shot at after they have made it through the gauntlet.

So when we see that 22,015 Chinook have crossed Bonneville to date, that seems like alot of salmon. But the total passage @ Lower Granite is only going to be about 28% of the Bonneville passage. The bottom line is that we lose alot of fish along the way (plus a good share are destined for other tribs between Bonneville and LG). I'm not really sure what to attribute that loss to, whether it be tribal, commercial, or sport fishing (I don't beleive there has been commercial fishing through the dam stretches for the last several years). But I have heard from multiple sources who have witnessed the Lower Columbia/Lower Snake this time of year say that the only way a salmon or steelhead can make it up through all the gillnets in that stretch is swimming right underneath the barges.

That 28% figure though is really only good for using the total passage @ Bonneville to predict the total passage @ LG. So it's nothing to really get too discouraged about (unless you use it to calculate what kind of passage we would need at Bonneville to meet the 128,000 and change that was forecast for LG this year)

A better figure to estimate the fish lost along the way is the 72% figure that I mentioned above. What that is saying is that last year, 28% of the fish destined for the Little Salmon River, that crossed Bonneville dam, either got lost, harvested, or otherwise killed before they made it to Lower Granite.

If very much of that can be attributed to tribal or sport fishing, then I have a bone to pick. The Idaho F & G closely moniters downriver fishing (and usually pre-emptively closes the Lower Salmon) to protect endangered upriver runs. I can only imagine how many different runs and subspecies of salmon and steelhead (endangered wild, as well as hatchery) are mixed in, in the Lower Snake and Lower Columbia. With that in mind, in my opinion, there shouldn't be any fishing whatsoever in those stretches, because there is no way of telling where a fish caught down there is headed.
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[Rockjmpr]

I totaly agree with your last statement. Unless somone can figure out where the loss is occuring between that strech it should be closed, even for only one-two seasons to determine if indeed it's tribal or commercial fishing causing the losses. You mentioned something very interesting though...what other subspecies are being lost in the Lower Snake and Lower Columbia? When I king fished in AK there were always Chum/Dog salmon and occasionaly pinks & reds mixed in the runs at certain times of the season. Where are they here in ID?? The same salmon run AK as they do ID, of course not the same returners to AK as ID but the same species with simular patterns. Are we just discarding the other species and not concerned about their spawning/reproduction?? HHHMMMMM[crazy]
Well thanks for the great insight and education, I do appreciate your time and help figuring out how the runs occur and dams influence the runs.
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[Got_Bait]

Sorry I didn't mean to confuse you there. With anadromous fish (salmon inparticular) each group of fish that is returning to a different tributary or even hatchery is considered a different subspecie (there might actually be a different term for it that I can't think of right now but I think its subspecie). So for example the fish returning to the Little Salmon River and the South Fork Salmon River would be considered separate and different subspecies (some might call them different "runs"). They are all Chinook salmon (that would be the species), but each subspecie is actually slightly different from each other from an evolutionary standpoint.

The fisheries management term would be "stock". Idaho F&G actually uses the same stock of Chinook for alot the salmon runs in Idaho, and mixes and matches to meet the quotas at the different hatcheries. If I am not mistaken, all the fish returning to Hells Canyon, all the Clearwater tribs and the Little Salmon (or Rapid River) are all the same stock. Some of the unique stocks that are the offspring of original historic wild fish include the fish that return to the SF Salmon (McCall Hatchery), Pahsimeroi River, and the Sawtooth hatchery, and are never mixed and matched. You can find some good info about all that on IF&G's Chinook Salmon Hatcheries web page.
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[Rockjmpr]

Okay thanks, I get it but again what about all the other "types" of salmon in ID? Why do we not have any other species of salmon here in ID? When the dam building controversy was going on did ID only concern themselves with Chinooks? Oh I'm just making conversation...I just want another persons perspective on the situation. I know I can find alot of info from ID F&G but I often wonder if it's bias or "public release" info. that may not hold all the facts. It's been great talking with ya and I'm hoping we can match your "number crunching" findings with info from our fishing trips and the guide friend I have up north when the run is on. Keep in touch, I really want to see if research matches our king season.
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[Got_Bait]

I don't think Idaho ever really had significant runs of Pink, Chum, or Coho salmon. I think it's just too far for them. I don't know the river miles to the Cw tribs right off the top of my head, but I know that Riggins is 600 and change, and Stanley and the Sawtooth hatchery are 900 and change. I think that is just too far for those species.

Now Idaho did historically have an exceptional run of Sockeye, that made the full trek to Redfish Lake near Stanley (hence the name). I can't speak for how much effort they put into recovering those fish, but I guess it wasn't enough.

The department head and some people from USU have conducted some published studies on those fish dealing with how large the smolts are when they head downriver. It was a theory that since Redfish Lake had become more Oligotrophic (clearer = less algae = less zooplankton, which the young fish feed on) than in the years that the runs were strong. So perhaps we couldn't get good returns because the fish weren't as large heading down the river to the ocean, and as a result were having less success surviving the trek downriver.

The largest documented dam passage (1200 and change) is at Ice Harbor back in the mid 60's when it was the only dam on the lower Snake. However, last year we had a little over 900 cross LG, which is the largest return we have had since the 60's and maybe early 70's. The good news is that IF&G had just completed a new facility dedicated entirely to Sockeye salmon, and that large return of fish was transferred there for processing. Hopefully they are going to start putting a little more focus into recovering those fish, and the combination of a new facility, and a large return of fish will provide a good foundation for doing so.

As a side note, one year back in the 90's only 1 fish returned to the Stanley basin. They called him Lonesome Larry, and froze his sperm for the fish that would (hopefully) return the next year. [cool]
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[Lundman]

I follow the runs and watch the fish cam at Bonneville Dam during the peak of the runs.... it's a drolling thing

Here is the link to the fish camera and at the bottom on that page is the link to the fish counts at all the dams on the columbia and snake.

[url "https://www.nwp.usace.army.mil/op/b/fishcam.asp"]https://www.nwp.usace.army.mil/op/b/fishcam.asp[/url]

or if you just want to see the fish counts here's the link:

[url "https://www.nwp.usace.army.mil/op/fishdata/home.asp"]https://www.nwp.usace.army.mil/op/fishdata/home.asp[/url]

Forecast for this years salmon run on the Columbia is good (as good as compared to other recent runs).

Hope this keeps you in the know - I am planning on fishing the fall upriver bright run which peaks around the first part of September in the Columbia between Bonneville & McNary Dams.
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[dma_ayotte]

links would not open for me, maybe some one else......thanks
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[Got_Bait]

Lundman,

I would like to hear a little more about that fall upriver bright run. There sure are alot of Chinook that head up the river in the fall. Lots of 5 year old and older fish too. Seems like they are all Columbia R. fish though.

How do you fish that big water? How big are the ones you catch?
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