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Upper Salmon River Chinook Update 5.30.25 by Angela Montana Montana Outdoor Radio Show, May 29, 2025

A harvest share of only 143 fish is obviously
a slim margin to operate a fishery on

Hi all,

I just wanted to post a short follow up to last week's update. As I said in that update, the upcoming week would mean a lot for the potential for an upper Salmon River Chinook fishery. Unfortunately, since last Friday we've only observed 2 more PIT tagged Sawtooth fish cross over Bonneville Dam.

Using the current PIT tag numbers and the average run timing, we estimate the run to come in a little over half of the pre-season forecast (~1,650 vs ~3,000 fish). Based on the current in-season projection, that results in a harvest share of only 143 fish. That's obviously a slim margin to operate a fishery on, but as I noted last week, we had a late push of Sawtooth fish over Bonneville last year (between June 5th and 23rd) that allowed us to open a fishery and boosted our harvest share. While we don't want to count on that again, we'll wait and see what the next week brings. Hopefully we'll see some more PIT tags over the coming days and have better news next week. Stay tuned...

Thanks,
Greg Schoby -- IDFG

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