FISHING -- An Idaho fish is leading the charge up the Columbia River.

The first spring chinook of the year was counted moving over Bonneville Dam on Feb. 26. The wild fish is headed back to Idaho in an attempt to spawn in the Lochsa River basin where it hatched. The salmon had been PIT tagged in 2011 as a juvenile at the Crooked Fork Creek Trap before heading out to sea to mature. 

About 312,600 adult spring chinook are forecast to be headed to the Columbia this year, just below last year's banner return.

According to the Columbia Basin Bulletin, the forecast calls for 232,500 fish in this year’s run to be upriver spring chinook bound for hatcheries and spawning areas above Bonneville Dam in Idaho, Oregon and Washington in both the Columbia and Snake river system.

The forecast predicts 27,500 upper Columbia spring chinook (4,500 wild) and 140,800 Snake River fish (45,300 wild), with the remainder of the run (64,200) comprised of spring chinook returning to mid-Columbia tributaries.

If accurate, this forecast of 232,500 upriver spring chinook would be the sixth highest return since 1980 and 131 percent of the average return observed over the past decade (2004–2013).