Steelhead reduced due to low returns

By Shannon Weidemann (McKone) on Wednesday, September 8th, 2021 in Eastern/Southeast Oregon News More Top Stories

BAKER COUNTY – (Information provided by the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife) Due to low returns, daily bag limits for hatchery summer steelhead will be reduced to one fish per day for the Snake River below Hells Canyon Dam effective Sept. 7.

Passage of steelhead at Bonneville Dam has been historically low and fisheries managers from Oregon, Idaho, and Washington are only expecting about 10,000 hatchery steelhead to pass Lower Granite Dam near Clarkston, Washington. The ten-year average for hatchery steelhead passage is about 70,000 fish. This means some hatchery programs in the Snake River Basin may struggle to collect the fish needed to spawn the next generation.

“The intent of reducing the bag limit to one fish per day is to ensure enough hatchery fish return to the trap at Hells Canyon Dam so we can meet production objectives,” said Kyle Bratcher, ODFW District Fish Biologist in Enterprise. “While we expect to narrowly meet broodstock collection goals, reducing the bag limit will allow us some breathing room if we come up short of our projections,” Bratcher added.

Summer steelhead are currently making their way through the main stem Columbia and Snake Rivers. While the steelhead season opened on Sept. 1, Bratcher doesn’t expect catch rates to pick up until the later end of the month. The best fishing is typically begins in October and continues throughout the winter.