Etiquette eases tension on rivers

Anglers seem to be keeping their cool and getting along in the midst of an outstanding steelhead run on the Clearwater, Snake and Salmon rivers this year.

Larry Barrett, a fisheries biologist for the Idaho Department of Fish and Game at Lewiston, said conflicts between anglers are not a widespread problem this fall.

“Things have been kind of stable the last few years,” he said.

To continue the good times, he said anglers should heed a few common-sense rules. During the heart of the steelhead fishing season, tempers have been known to flare when anglers get too close to one another or boaters operate in an unsafe manner.

Boaters are responsible for their wakes, but anglers must recognize where boats must maintain speed. On the Clearwater especially, boat operators have to run fast in many locations to stay on plane and get past shallow spots.

Bank anglers and power boaters may clash when the bank angler is wading in a narrow point of the Clearwater and a power boat needs to pass.

“If a power boater needs to get over a gravel bar, there might be a time when he needs to stay on plane and stay on speed and come closer than he normally would if there were more room,” Barrett said.

The Clearwater River is a navigable stream under state law and it is illegal to block such a stream.

But he said power boaters need to be aware of their wake and how it might disturb other boat anglers or bank anglers.

Several unwritten rules help anglers get along and each fishing method often has its own rules.

For instance, it is considered rude to start fishing below a fly angler working down through a run or to start below back-trolling anglers working through a hole.

It is best to pass side drifters on the side of the boat from which they are not fishing. Barrett said side drifters should take care not to cast over the lines of back trollers or fly fishermen and other bank anglers.

“A little courtesy goes a long way,” he said. “It’s a public river and we are all out there doing the same thing, enjoying the resource.”

Night fishermen in the lower Clearwater and confluence area are required to have legal running lights on their boats and should remember that some anglers are fishing from the shore with lighted bobbers, Barrett said.

“It’s always good for folks to keep an eye out for lighted bobbers.”

So far this year more than 165,000 steelhead have passed Lower Granite Dam on the Snake River. Barrett said those fish are distributed throughout the Clearwater, Salmon and Snake rivers.

There are 650 miles of river open to steelhead fishing now and probably fish in all of them, with really good fishing in 400 of those river miles. The South Fork of the Clearwater and the Little Salmon are probably not full of fish yet. But everywhere else there should be fish, from Kooskia to Lewiston on the Clearwater, Hells Canyon Dam to Lewiston on the Snake River and on the Salmon River all the way to Challis.

Occasional reports of Washington anglers keeping wild steelhead are still trickling in, he said. The steelhead catch record cards issued by Washington say one wild steelhead can be applied to the card. But that language applies only to a handful of rivers on the Olympic Peninsula and not to the Snake River or its tributaries.

The first fall chinook season in decades runs through the end of the month on the Snake River between Southway Bridge at Lewiston and Hells Canyon Dam. Barrett said about 60 adult fall chinook, most in the 10- to 12-pound range, have been caught on the Snake River in the past two weeks.