Fish Around For Salmon Combo Trip

Thu., Sept. 26, 1996

Rich Landers Outdoors Editor

The Salmon River is no place for tenderfoots. Everything’s tough here, including the game.

But for sportsmen, there’s a sure way to double your pleasure. Try a combo trip with a river guide who can lead you to fishing for steelhead and hunting for chukars.

Chukar partridge favor the steep, rocky hillsides, where they can flush and glide into the bowels of one of the deep canyons.

The steelhead, which amount to turbo-charged rainbows, revel in stripping line off your reel and searching for any weakness in your drag or knots.

Yet this sporty combo has made a paradox of the term River of No Return. Sportsmen keep coming back to scuff boot leather in the morning, relax with a rod and reel in the afternoon, and dine on surf and turf along a river sandbar.

A good bet is a multi-day drift boat float between Whitebird, Idaho, and the confluence with the Snake River, although rafts and jet boats each virtues.

In fall, hunters with some whitewater rowing experience can negotiate the rapids. Those short on experience should go with a guide, because this is wilderness with emphasis on the WILD.

, DataTimes MEMO: Contact Idaho Outfitters and Guides Association for a free directory, (800) 847-4843.

Contact Idaho Outfitters and Guides Association for a free directory, (800) 847-4843.

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