Alan Liere’s hunting and fishing report for Sept. 4, 2025

Thu., Sept. 4, 2025

By Alan Liere The Spokesman-Review

Tip of the week

Tip of the week: You’re missing a bet if you have never hunted doves with a spinning wings dove decoy out in front of your stand. They are easy to carry and use and will draw in birds that would normally fly on by. The concept seems too simple to actually work, but the spinning wings draw in doves that I assume think one of their kind has found a grain stash and is about to set down.

Overheard: Fish counts over Bonneville Dam show large numbers of fish being counted the past week. Normally, it takes about 10 days for salmon and steelhead to get from Bonneville Dam to Lower Granite Dam, but when water temperatures are high like they are now, many of these fish head into Drano Lake or the Klickitat and Deschutes River where waters are cooler. When these fish reach Idaho, fishing will pick up.

Trapping of fall Chinook by the Nez Perce Tribe is still occurring at Lower Granite for brood stock. Biologist Don Whitney says they have been taking up to 70% of the fall Chinook passing through Lower Granite Dam for the past two weeks and will continue to take the same percentage for another two weeks. Then he says that the percentage will drop to 17% to 19% and will continue until they reach their broodstock goal of 3,500-4,000 fish. One of the reasons they take such a high percentage early in the run of fall Chinook is because older and bigger fish come in first, especially wild fish. The Nez Perce want 30% of the broodstock captured to be wild and by trapping early, the get the biggest and the best fish for the hatcheries.

Heads up: To protect other wildlife species, including waterfowl and raptors, nontoxic shot is now required for all upland bird, dove, and band-tailed pigeon hunting on all pheasant release sites statewide in Washington, even if you are hunting doves.

Recent cooler temperatures will allow hoot owl fishing restrictions to be lifted on Silver Bow Creek, and the lower Bitterroot, Clark Fork, Beaverhead, East Gallatin, Gallatin, Ruby and Smith rivers, effective immediately. Part of the closure on the Madison River upstream of Hebgen Reservoir will change to hoot owl restrictions.

Deer Lake, a small but popular bank fishing lake off the Tucannon River on the W.T. Wooten Wildlife Area in southeast Washington, closed early this year for repairs on Sept. 2 rather than its usual Nov. 30 closing date. Spring Lake is scheduled to reopen by Sept. 18.

Braggin’ rights: In a harvested wheat field surrounded by tall plots of hops near Sunnyside, Washington, a son, a nephew and I experienced mourning dove hunts on Monday and Tuesday that I never expected to experience again since hunting eared doves in Cordoba, Argentina, 10 years ago. The morning hunts were actually over too quickly with 15-bird limits around. Did I shoot well? Does anyone? Suffice to say none of us embarrassed ourselves too terribly, and during the dove barbecue on Monday night, we blabbered hopefully about a return next opening day.

Fly fishing

The best fishing for trout on the Spokane River is on the lower section where flows are still good. Silver Bow Fly Shop says caddis nymphs always work this time of year. Try fishing small streamers to mix it up. Nymph rigs through the deep trenches work well, but expect to catch a lot of whitefish too. The river from Sullivan Road and downstream is all fed by aquifer recharge entering the system. It runs cold year round.

Trout and Kokanee

Fernan Lake is a popular fishing spot 10 minutes from downtown Coeur d’Alene. It offers fishing from floating docks, miles of shoreline or from boats. It will soon be stocked with 4,825 rainbow trout. Also to be stocked soon in the Idaho Panhandle is Post Falls Park Pond which will receive 800 rainbow. This park offers a great fishing spot for kids and anglers with special needs. Anglers can easily fish the small pond from a fishing bridge, shore, or fishing platforms. Smith Lake, another Panhandle Lake, will receive a plant of 540 rainbow trout.

In the Clearwater region, trout will be stocked in Fenn Pond, Campbell’s Pond, Karolyn’s Pond and Robinson Pond. All of these offer easy access for anglers without a boat.

Steelhead and salmon

A good run of some 30,000 fall Chinook are on their way to Idaho and the A-run steelhead have already tripled earlier forecasts. This fall should see great fishing for salmon and steelhead. Prospects for B-run fish are still a bit uncertain.

The fall steelhead harvest season in most Idaho rivers opened Sept. 1, and at Bonneville Dam, that run is zooming past the preseason forecast. A lot of anglers skipped the Sept. 1 steelhead opener at Lewiston, opting to wait for the weather to cool and the run to build. A friend who did make it out fished the confluence of the Snake and Clearwater with bobber and shrimp and said fishing was very slow, though he did catch one wild fish. Fall chinook fishing has also been spotty and slow in the confluence of the Clearwater and Snake rivers.

Impressive numbers of salmon are also crossing Bonneville Dam on their way to Idaho’s Snake River, as well as the Hanford Reach. Great fishing is already available at Buoy 10 and Drano Lake. Although Salmon fishing above Priest Rapids Dam opened on Sept. 1, there aren’t many fish there yet. The fall fish are arriving later than last year, but they are supposed to come in better numbers than last season. The A-run fish appear to be returning in a more traditional pattern this year where about 70% of them have been in salt water for a year and 30% for two years.

A forecast of nearly 7.8 million pink salmon began arriving in late summer and anglers should continue to find decent fishing in open marine areas through mid-September with the focus shifting to rivers as we head into fall. A friend who drove over to Everett last week to fish for pinks in the Skagit River said the run was just starting in the lower river, and he hit the tides wrong only catching a few for the smoker. He noted that though he tried all his pink creations, the only thing the fish would bite were live sand shrimp floated off the bottom with large Corkies.

Spiny ray

You can still catch walleye and smallmouth bass, but the hot weather has sent them deeper. Anything under 30 feet is probably too shallow in flat water. Perch don’t normally go so deep, and neither do crappie and bluegill.

Other species

It’s time to submit summer Puget Sound Dungeness crab catch record cards to the WDFW. Only two areas will remain open for recreational crabbing after Labor Day; Marine Area 7 north and Marine Area 7 south. Both areas are open to crabbing Thursdays to Mondays only through Sept. 29. All crab caught in both areas after Sept. 1 must be recorded on winter catch record cards.

Hunting

For the first time in what seems like forever, cool weather and rain hadn’t scared all the doves out of Washington and Idaho by the Sept. 1 opener. Reports of good shooting come from Spokane to Lewiston and beyond. Reardan, Sprague, Walla Walla/Dayton, Yakima, Wenatchee and the Okanogan all had good numbers of doves, as did the Moscow, Plummer and Boise areas. The trick is to find harvested grain fields with good roosting cover nearby.

Sept. 20 is the opening of Idaho chukar and gray partridge season as well as California and bobwhite quail.

The pheasant population in eastern Washington is generally projected to be fair to good, but a continued drought through September could negatively impact populations of all upland game birds. To enhance opportunity, WDFW will plant birds in 33 pheasant release sites throughout the state.

Contact Alan Liere at spokesmanliere@yahoo.com