Alan Liere’s hunting and fishing report for Oct. 9, 2025
Fly fishing
Silver Bow Fly Shop guides say the bigger Spokane River rainbow trout are starting to show up now. Larger Chernobyls with droppers are still the best bet. October caddis and blue-winged olives are also on the menu. Good streamer and soft hackle fishing can be had on the swing. Water levels have come up slightly.
Good fall fishing continues on the North Fork of the Coeur d’Alene River. You can still use some terrestrials but pack your fall bugs like October caddis, mahogany dun mayflies and blue winged olive mayflies. The same goes for the St. Joe River, which is fishing very well.
Trout and Kokanee
Triploid rainbow from 3 to 5 pounds have been the rule for boat fishermen dunking Power Bait near the upper net pens on Rufus Woods Reservoir. Fishing is best if there is a little current.
Lake Roosevelt trout fishermen are having their best luck trolling flies and Flicker Minnows, orange Rapalas or red Apexes at about 30 feet. Most of the fish are 17 inches and larger. Some days the trout seem to prefer a flasher with their flies.
Steelhead and salmon
The Snake and Clearwater rivers are again open to the harvest of non-clipped chinook salmon until the end of October. The season is open daily with a limit of three adult chinook (wild or hatchery) and no limit for jack chinook.
The cooling water on the Grande Ronde is bringing in some steelhead, and though the river is low, recent rain showers have helped. Look for the Ronde to fill up with fish as October progresses.
A friend said he caught a keeper 5-pound A-run steelhead in the lower Clearwater near the railroad bridge this week, adding that trollers were getting a few fall chinook circling upstream and downstream of the railroad bridge. Some think the recent full moon may have killed the bite, but the past week, it has been hit or miss – good one day and bad the next. Another friend fishing a bobber and shrimp on the Snake/Clearwater confluence on Monday caught a hatchery B-run steelhead and lost another at the boat.
There are enough big chinook salmon in the Hanford Reach near the Vernita Bridge now to make a trip worthwhile. The King Hole, near the Vernita Access Site, can be good for trolled Super Baits and flashers, and back-trolling plugs wrapped with sardines can also produce across from Reactor B.
The Icicle River coho run has not really materialized this year. Coho numbers are way down and the water is low and warm.
Spiny ray
Friends who booked a two-night stay at Tiffany’s Resort on Curlew Lake said the perch fishing was outstanding. They said they kept nothing smaller than 9 inches with several of the fish stretching 11 inches. Most fish were caught in 30 feet of water.
Other Washington lakes for good-sized perch include Jump-off Joe, Waitts, Sacheen, Diamond and Long. Eloika has been a bit of a surprise the past two years. Up until 2024, an average-sized Eloika perch was 7 inches, and the largest I had caught in 70 years of fishing there was 9½ inches long. Now, it is not unusual to catch perch up to 11 inches.
Banks Lake has good fall fishing now for bass, walleye and lake whitefish. Moses Lake and Potholes Reservoir in the Columbia Basin, Roses Lake in Chelan County, and Leader, Patterson, and Palmer lakes in Okanogan County, should also be good for most spiny ray species.
Lake Roosevelt walleye are feeding on perch and crawdads. Porcupine Bay has been good at times, and fishing the mud lines with spinners and nightcrawlers is still a productive method of finding a walleye.
Other species
This is an excellent time for northern pike on Coeur d’Alene. Plugs, jerk baits, and spinnerbaits take most of the fish.
Lake Roosevelt anglers say they are beginning to catch burbot in the vicinity of Porcupine Bay while trolling for walleye. It may be time to target these fish with plastics and bait in the deeper holes up the Spokane Arm.
Hunting
Pheasant season opens Saturday in north Idaho and Oct. 18 in south and east Idaho. Idaho Fish and Game will stock nearly 29,000 pheasants this year at locations in every region of the state. Hunters can see a full list of where and when pheasants will be released statewide on the Pheasant Stocking Program webpage.
Chukar populations in the Salmon and Snake River drainages of Idaho are good. Biologists have observed high survival of young and robust populations and hunter reports so far are enthusiastic. Valley quail numbers also look good
Grouse hunters have had a tough time finding birds this fall. A neighbor who has been out twice in Washington and twice in Idaho says that to date, he has only seen one grouse feather. Perhaps the cooler weather will bring the ruffs out of the swamps where they have been living during the hot summer.
The general Washington season for modern firearm hunting for white-tailed and mule deer begins Saturday. In northeast Washington, the best white-tailed deer hunting is in District 1 in Ferry, Stevens and Pend Oreille counties. Mule deer hunting is usually best in GMUs 101 and 121. The best white-tailed hunting is usually in GMUs 124 and 127, but both have been negatively affected by blue tongue. The best mule deer hunting is in GMUs 136, 139, and 142. GMUs with the highest success rates – 146, 145, 149, 178 and 181 – have limited access because of private land. GMUs 166 and 175 have the most public land, but also the lowest success rates, in part due to high hunter numbers. For the most part, Idaho deer open Friday, but the best way assure you’re hunting the right species and sex at the right time in the right unit is to check out the lengthy specific Idaho regulations in their Big Game pamphlet.
The general season for Washington pheasant hunting starts Oct. 18 in eastern Washington with most of the action in Whitman County and south of the Snake River. In addition to wild birds, pheasant hunting opportunities are enhanced with releases of farm-raised roosters at sites across the region. Details can be found on the Eastern Washington Pheasant Enhancement Program web page.
Washington duck and goose hunting opens statewide Saturday. Duck remains open through Oct. 19, then closed through Oct. 21 before opening again Oct. 22. An exception is the scaup season, which is closed Oct. 11 to 31.
In Idaho area 3, the duck season began Oct. 4 except for the scaup season which opens Oct. 23 in Area 3 and Nov. 7 in Area 1. Area 3 includes the Benewah, Bonner, Boundary, Kootenai and Shoshone counties. Duck open Oct. 19 in Area 1. Canada geese open in Area 3 Nov. 3 In Area 1, they open Oct. 19.
Idaho and Washington turkey hunters have until Dec. 31 to get a bird. Right now, these are congregated in large flocks on the perimeter of woodlands and in open fields where they are still feeding voraciously on lethargic grasshoppers.
Contact Alan Liere at spokesmanliere@yahoo.com