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Idaho Closes Salmon Fishing on Lower Clearwater River by Eric Barker Lewiston Tribune, May 20, 2026

State reduces bag limits elsewhere

The spring chinook fishing season between Lewiston and Cherrylane is over and bag limits have been reduced on the rest of the Clearwater River, it was announced Tuesday.

The return of adult salmon to the Snake River and its tributaries from the Pacific Ocean has not lived up to a modest preseason forecast, prompting fisheries managers at the Idaho Department of Fish and Game to make difficult changes.

Prior to the season, state, tribal and federal fisheries managers estimated 147,300 adult spring chinook bound for areas upstream of Bonneville Dam would return from the ocean. But daily fish counts at Bonneville peaked at about 6,700 in late April and then dropped steadily. Daily counts are also declining at Lower Granite Dam on the Snake River.

"Unfortunately, the rapid drop in fish crossing Lower Granite further reinforces the reality of this year's underwhelming salmon return," said Joe Thiessen, regional fisheries manager for the department at Lewiston, said in a posted update on the run.

Fisheries managers have slashed their run-size prediction over the past few weeks -- first to 126,200 and more recently to 111,900.

Likewise, Idaho and the Nez Perce Tribe reduced the projected harvest share -- the number of hatchery chinook available for harvest -- to match the new reality. The season started with a projected harvest share of about 2,000 for the Clearwater fishery. It dropped to 1,200 last week and now sits at about 1,000.

That reduction has ramifications on both the state's harvest matrix used to set things like daily bag limits and its harvest goals on individual stretches of river. As of Sunday night, anglers had harvested 304 adult salmon on the lower Clearwater or about 28 percent of the run and just 78 fish shy of the department's goal for that stretch of river, prompting its closure.

The reduced harvest share also called for a reduction of the daily bag limit from two adult salmon per day to just one on the rest of the Clearwater River fishery.

Thiessen said anglers have harvested fish bound for the Rapid River Hatchery near Riggins and in the Hells Canyon Fishery. His run update report is available at bit.ly/4v3xYWu.