New fishing rules; chinook season opens

The Idaho Fish and Game Commission has approved a spring chinook salmon fishing season and major changes to fishing regulations on Lake Pend Oreille and its tributaries — all of which are in effect today.

The commissioners made the decisions Thursday and Friday during their meeting in Coeur d’Alene.

Idaho’s spring chinook salmon fishing season opens today on the Upper Snake River in Hells Canyon, Lower Salmon River, Clearwater River, including the North and South forks, and the Little Salmon River.

Fishing in most cases will be allowed Fridays through Mondays until July 31 unless Idaho fish managers decide to close the season earlier. Exceptions are the Upper Snake River, which is set to close June 19, and the Lower Salmon River, which will close June 26.

The commission voted to remove the six-trout daily limit on rainbows at Lake Pend Oreille and to allow anglers to use up to four rods with a two-rod license stamp while fishing on the lake. The changes are part of an emergency effort to reduce the number of predators, which researchers say are preventing the recovery of a decimated kokanee fishery.

Also starting today, anglers can fish for rainbows with no limit in Grouse and Lightning creeks and the Pack River, all of which will remain open until the normal closing date of Aug. 31.

Rainbow trout fishing also opens today and will be allowed year-round with no limits on the entire Idaho section of the Clark Fork River, including the section downstream from the railroad bridge at Clark Fork that normally doesn’t open until Memorial Day weekend.

However, the Clark Fork currently is high with runoff and is not in good fishing condition, said Chip Corsi, Fish and Game Department Panhandle Region manager.

“The commissioners said they will re-evaluate these changes to fishing the tributaries before their January meeting after they get together with us to review the status of our efforts to recover the Lake Pend Oreille kokanee fishery,” Corsi said.

“These are desperate times for kokanee, and desperate measures are called for,” he said.

The outlook is more positive for the region’s spring chinook anglers.

By Friday, more than 5,000 spring chinook had migrated up the Columbia and Snake rivers and into Idaho. In the past few days they have been swimming over Lower Granite Dam at the rate of more than 1,000 a day.

Idaho has opened a spring chinook season every year since 1999, but not until this week did Fish and Game Department biologists see the late surge of fish coming upriver in numbers high enough to allow fishing this spring.

Washington announced earlier this week that it was opening spring chinook fishing for a stretch of the Snake River near Little Goose Dam.

On Friday, Washington announced a regulation change that allows anglers to use double or treble hooks as well as single hooks while fishing for salmon in the Snake River. The hooks still must be barbless and the hook gap can be no bigger than 5/8-inch, but the single hook requirement has been withdrawn, said Tim Flint, Fish and Wildlife Department fisheries manager in Olympia.

Also on Friday, Washington announced it will open spring chinook salmon fishing on a section of the Icicle River in Chelan County May 26-July 31.