Idaho steelhead slow to arrive

Idaho biologists are concerned about the low numbers of steelhead moving up the Columbia River.

“It’s definitely got our attention,” said Sharon Kiefer, Idaho Fish and Game Department anadromous fish manager. But she added that agency officials are “not in a panict, yet.”

The 10-year average number of steelhead that have passed through Bonneville Dam by early August is 120,000. So far, just 66,000 have made it past the dam. Bonneville is the first of eight dams the oceangoing fish pass before reaching Idaho.

Last year at this time, about 106,000 steelhead had made it past the dam. In 2001, more than 300,000 steelhead had passed the dam by this time.

The 10-year average total of steelhead past the dam is 312,000.

Fishing seasons and bag limits this season will not be changed unless the run turns out to be well below recent years, Kiefer said.

Most steelhead returning this year headed to the ocean in 2005, when ocean conditions were poor for young fish due to low amounts of phytoplankton and zooplankton, primary food sources.

Mike Cummins, who owns the Shed Fly Shop in the northern Idaho town of Peck, said he hooked his first summer steelhead last year on July 1, but this year he had not heard of anyone catching a steelhead by the first of August.

“I might be worrying about them in a month if there aren’t any up here,” said Cummins, who gets about 95 percent of his business from steelhead anglers.

Though catch-and-release fishing for steelhead is open in many of Idaho’s rivers, the only spot currently open to catch-and-keep fishing is a small stretch of the Clearwater River near Lewiston. The general steelhead season opens Sept. 1.