This year’s fantastic steelhead run reached another mile stone at Lower Granite Dam this week.

The official tally of steelhead at the dam, that is 35 miles west of the Lewiston Clarkston Valley, surpassed 300,000 Monday when 909 more steelhead were counted there. The results were not reported until Thursday.
This year’s run  smashed the previous record of 256,810  set in 2001 and is the largest run recorded since steelhead have been counted at Lower Granite when it’s construction was completed in 1975.

The 10-year average for steelhead at the dam is 146,970.

Through Tuesday, the steelhead counts have included 69,742 wild steelhead.

Washington has followed Idaho and raised the daily bag limit on Snake River steelhead to five per day.

As in Idaho, only three of the five steelhead can be 32 inches long or longer. But that just applies to the Snake River from its mouth to the Idaho/Washington state line.

The daily bag limit will also rise in the Grand Ronde River and there will be no size limits there. The size limit on the Snake is designed to protect B-run steelhead that are not returning in high numbers.

The section of the Ronde from its mouth to the county bridge 2.5 miles upstream  is reserved for catch and release fishing only.

The new bag limits take effect Wednesday (Oct. 7).

Washington is also encouraging all anglers to retain all hatchery steelhead they catch. The 2009 return of steelhead is huge and far more steelhead are expected to return than will be need for brood stock needs at hatcheries. One of the reasons the limits are being raised is to prevent hatchery steelhead from spawning in streams with wild steelhead.

“Removal of excess hatchery steelhead will reduce potential adverse effects on ESA listed wild steelhead,” reads a press release from the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife.

The official count of steelhead passing lower Granite Dam has surpassed 200,000.

On Monday, 8,210 steelhead were counted at the dam bring the total number counted since June 1 to 200,481. That is well ahead of the pace set in the record setting run of 2001. Between June 1 and Oct. 5 of 2001, 152,828 steelhead were counted. By the end of that year, 256,810 steelhead were counted, the most recorded since Lower Granite Dam was completed in 1975.

Will this year’s run set a new record? I’m betting yes but time will tell.
How high do you think this year’s run will go?

The Idaho Fish and Game Commission will meet by telephone Wednesday to consider raising the steelhead bag limit on the Snake and Salmon rivers from three per day to five per day.

If the limits are raised, it is likely to come with a size limit. Current bag limits allow anglers on those two rivers to keep three hatchery steelhead per day. The new limits, if approved, would likely allow anglers to keep five per day but only two of the five could be longer than 32 inches.

The size limit is being considered to protect B-run steelhead that spend two years in the ocean and are not returning in high numbers like A-run steelhead that spend just one year in the ocean. Forecasts call for only 40,000 to 50,000 B-run steelhead to return at least as far as Bonneville Dam on the Columbia River.

Similar steelhead bag limit changes are being considered in Washington and Oregon. Washington could make a decision by the end of this week or early next week. The new limits might not take effect in Washington until early next month.

Through Sunday, 152,706 steelhead had been counted at Lower Granite Dam on the Snake River, 35 miles west of Lewiston. The 10-year average for this time of year is 64,789.

The run is on a pace to beat the previous record posted in the past 34 years. The high mark was set in 2001 when 256,810 steelhead were counted at the dam between June 1 and Dec. 31.  In 2001, 94,502 steelhead passed the dam between June. 1 and Sept. 27.

The run is starting to slow at Bonneville Dam on the Columbia River. Fewer than 2,ooo steelhead per day have been counted at Bonneville in the past seven days. But so far this year, 580,740 steelhead have passed the dam. That is behind the pace of the 2001 run when 606,785 had been counted at Bonneville between Jan. 1 and Sept. 27

If you are a steelhead fisherman in the Lewiston/Clarkston area you’ve probably noticed the water level has risen in Lower Granite Reservoir the past few days.

Each year when salmon and steelhead smolts are migrating to the ocean the reservoirs behind the lower Snake River dams are dropped to what is known as MOP + 1 or minimum opperating pool plus one foot. That usually starts in the spring and ends late summer to early fall.

The idea is that the reservoir level is lowered so the slack water acts more like a river and it takes juvenile salmon and steelhead less time to make through the system.

Juvenile fall chinook are the last of the smolts to move through the system and the migration usually tales of in mid to late Sept. When that happens, the pool level is raised again to make it easier for barges and tug boats negotiating the reservoir.

The result of the higher water means some features like Tower Beach on the south end of Hells Gate State Park in Lewiston vanish as the river rises. The rising water also picks up drift wood and trash along the banks of the river. So that is why you are seeing debris on the water that is more typical of what is seen in the spring.