Gone Steelhead Fishing!
Time for the annual crew member Steelhead fishing trip. The Oregon Grande Ronde River Steelhead Season is just about to be in full swing. There have been reports of Steelhead being caught in the lower river particularly in the Heller Bar area. The Grande Ronde is still quite low which I think is probably slowing down steelhead upriver movement. We did have a nice spike of cold water last week that should have produced a little excitement in the fish movement.
The crew and I are packing the boats today and heading down to the lower river for a 3 day float. We are going to float from Boggan’s Oasis to Heller Bar and test the Washington waters to see what might be in store for us on our Wilderness fishing trips later in the month. There is still space available on our October 24th Supported Steelhead fishing trip. It is not too late to join in the fun. There is also space available on our November 2 Support trip. Stay tuned for a full Grande Ronde River Steelhead report on Friday.
Here is fish biologist Jeff Yankees fish number synopsis for the week.
Our fish are still moving through the hydrosystem. We estimated that 1,157 and 1,628 steelhead crossed McNary and Ice Harbor Dams, respectively, last week. That’s farily consistant with what’s been observed the past few weeks.
- Closer to home, we estimated that 2,377 steelhead migrated above Lower Granite Dam last week. That’s very consistent with last’s weeks observations. To date we’ve estimated that 6,885 steelhead have crossed Lower Granite, representing around 34% and 47% of the Grande Ronde and Imnaha estimates at Bonneville Dam, respectively.
- We observed three more PIT tags detected in the Imnaha River last week. Flows are still very low though, just over 100 cfs.
- Expect a harvest report from the Grande Ronde in a few days. The Heller Bar fishery near the mouth of the Grande Ronde was in full swing last week, but success has been varied near Troy. A few anglers were reporting 1-4 fish hooked earlier last week, but most couldn’t shake the skunk this weekend. Lots of bull trout in the vicinity, please help us encourage folks to treat them well.
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