04-30-2015, 02:36 PM
For those of you who aren't on the weekly mailing list for the Chinook Update by Joe Dupont here it is! I've attached the photos that he had in the email. All really good news!
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Hi everybody, it is time for the Clearwater Region’s weekly Chinook update (4/29/15).
This will be fun update to give because I have lots of good news for you. Since my last e-mail, the Chinook Salmon have continued to poor over Bonneville Dam. I was worried it would peak and quickly drop off, but that is not the case. Consequently, our estimate for the number of adult hatchery fish that will eventually make it to Idaho has only gone up. If you look at the table below (focus on the last two columns) you will see that we are projecting an overall harvest share in the Clearwater River basin somewhere between 4,343 and 10,771 adult fish, between 7,020 and 13,736 for the Rapid River run, and from about 1,000 to 2,000 fish for Hells Canyon. Just so you all are aware of why there is a large range in these estimates, it is because we still aren’t certain whether the run has an early timing or average timing. If the run is early, we would expect over 80% of the fish to have passed over Bonneville Dam by now, whereas if the run has an average timing only around 50% of the run would have passed over Bonneville by now. There are some things that make me think the run isn’t an early timing run. First of all, the Jacks destined for Idaho really haven’t started showing up. If the run had an early timing we would expect to have seen more by now. The other reason is as the run gets near the end, the number of fish passing over Bonneville that are destined for Idaho should start dropping off. The Idaho bound fish are still coming over strong. Regardless of where we end up, I can tell you that there is going to be a lot of fish out there to catch, and it should be a great season.
As you all know, last weekend was the Salmon opener in the Clearwater Region; and we saw people fishing the Clearwater River from Lewiston up past Orofino and the Snake River below Hells Canyon Dam. As expected, catch rates were low as the fish were just getting here, but some people caught fish. All the fish we documented being caught were around Lewiston. Based on our creel survey, we estimated 16 adult fish were harvested. We measured one fish at 40 inches long and heard of another that was pushing 30 pounds. By this weekend there should be 10 times as many fish in Idaho as we saw during the opener, and the fishing should be much better. I wouldn’t surprise me if this weekend people catch salmon in the Clearwater River upstream to Orofino and in the Snake River below Hells Canyon Dam. Those of you who like to fish the Rapid River run may have to wait another week or two before the fish start arriving in catchable numbers.
The table below will be of interest to many of you. It shows how many adult fish were harvested in the Clearwater River basin and where they were caught. So, if you look at the table you will see that we estimated 16 fish were harvested in section 1 (the bottom of the table tells where section 1 is) during the opening weekend. Each week we will updates this table. If you like to fish the Clearwater, one thing to pay attention to is the section in blue. This tells what percent of the harvest share is allocated to each river section and how many fish remain to be harvested before we will close down that section of river. In case you were wondering, these allocations were developed by anglers in an effort to fairly distribute harvest throughout the different communities in the Clearwater basin. As fish start being harvested from the Rapid River run, I will add a table that shows how many of these fish are being caught, where they are being caught, and how close we are getting to our overall harvest share. Some of you may have noticed that I put 5,000 adult fish in the table below as the harvest share for the Clearwater. This is just what I think is a conservative estimate that I used for a starter. This number will change and get more precise as we better understand just how many fish will make it to Idaho.
I hope you are all getting as excited as I am about this Chinook run. My excitement certainly got the best of me as I went out and bought a new rod and have started loading up on tackle. Good luck fishing. "
Joe DuPont
Clearwater Region Fishery Manager
Idaho Department of Fish and Game
3316 16th Street
Lewiston, Idaho 83501
All really good news. It looks like it's time to wet some lines. Another 3k fish passed over LGR yesterday bringing the ytd total to just over 10k fish above LGR and another 11k over Bonneville and 17k the day before that so we got good numbers coming up! It would be awesome if this turns out to be a much bigger run than the forecast from back in the winter time. It looks like we will beat that especially if Joe is right about the Idaho fish numbers not slowing at Bonneville yet making this closer to an average timed run, but just big enough to get all these numbers we are seeing so far! I think this run is very comparable so far to the 2010 run as far as size goes and water conditions will be about the same if not a little lower than that year, so fish might push into the upper systems a bit quicker.
GL and TL
Blitz
[signature]
"
Hi everybody, it is time for the Clearwater Region’s weekly Chinook update (4/29/15).
This will be fun update to give because I have lots of good news for you. Since my last e-mail, the Chinook Salmon have continued to poor over Bonneville Dam. I was worried it would peak and quickly drop off, but that is not the case. Consequently, our estimate for the number of adult hatchery fish that will eventually make it to Idaho has only gone up. If you look at the table below (focus on the last two columns) you will see that we are projecting an overall harvest share in the Clearwater River basin somewhere between 4,343 and 10,771 adult fish, between 7,020 and 13,736 for the Rapid River run, and from about 1,000 to 2,000 fish for Hells Canyon. Just so you all are aware of why there is a large range in these estimates, it is because we still aren’t certain whether the run has an early timing or average timing. If the run is early, we would expect over 80% of the fish to have passed over Bonneville Dam by now, whereas if the run has an average timing only around 50% of the run would have passed over Bonneville by now. There are some things that make me think the run isn’t an early timing run. First of all, the Jacks destined for Idaho really haven’t started showing up. If the run had an early timing we would expect to have seen more by now. The other reason is as the run gets near the end, the number of fish passing over Bonneville that are destined for Idaho should start dropping off. The Idaho bound fish are still coming over strong. Regardless of where we end up, I can tell you that there is going to be a lot of fish out there to catch, and it should be a great season.
As you all know, last weekend was the Salmon opener in the Clearwater Region; and we saw people fishing the Clearwater River from Lewiston up past Orofino and the Snake River below Hells Canyon Dam. As expected, catch rates were low as the fish were just getting here, but some people caught fish. All the fish we documented being caught were around Lewiston. Based on our creel survey, we estimated 16 adult fish were harvested. We measured one fish at 40 inches long and heard of another that was pushing 30 pounds. By this weekend there should be 10 times as many fish in Idaho as we saw during the opener, and the fishing should be much better. I wouldn’t surprise me if this weekend people catch salmon in the Clearwater River upstream to Orofino and in the Snake River below Hells Canyon Dam. Those of you who like to fish the Rapid River run may have to wait another week or two before the fish start arriving in catchable numbers.
The table below will be of interest to many of you. It shows how many adult fish were harvested in the Clearwater River basin and where they were caught. So, if you look at the table you will see that we estimated 16 fish were harvested in section 1 (the bottom of the table tells where section 1 is) during the opening weekend. Each week we will updates this table. If you like to fish the Clearwater, one thing to pay attention to is the section in blue. This tells what percent of the harvest share is allocated to each river section and how many fish remain to be harvested before we will close down that section of river. In case you were wondering, these allocations were developed by anglers in an effort to fairly distribute harvest throughout the different communities in the Clearwater basin. As fish start being harvested from the Rapid River run, I will add a table that shows how many of these fish are being caught, where they are being caught, and how close we are getting to our overall harvest share. Some of you may have noticed that I put 5,000 adult fish in the table below as the harvest share for the Clearwater. This is just what I think is a conservative estimate that I used for a starter. This number will change and get more precise as we better understand just how many fish will make it to Idaho.
I hope you are all getting as excited as I am about this Chinook run. My excitement certainly got the best of me as I went out and bought a new rod and have started loading up on tackle. Good luck fishing. "
Joe DuPont
Clearwater Region Fishery Manager
Idaho Department of Fish and Game
3316 16th Street
Lewiston, Idaho 83501
All really good news. It looks like it's time to wet some lines. Another 3k fish passed over LGR yesterday bringing the ytd total to just over 10k fish above LGR and another 11k over Bonneville and 17k the day before that so we got good numbers coming up! It would be awesome if this turns out to be a much bigger run than the forecast from back in the winter time. It looks like we will beat that especially if Joe is right about the Idaho fish numbers not slowing at Bonneville yet making this closer to an average timed run, but just big enough to get all these numbers we are seeing so far! I think this run is very comparable so far to the 2010 run as far as size goes and water conditions will be about the same if not a little lower than that year, so fish might push into the upper systems a bit quicker.
GL and TL
Blitz
[signature]