Winding Water River Expeditions

Grande Ronde River Steelhead Catch Rates

October 21, 2014
Paul Arentsen

We had a few anglers out on the Grande Ronde River yesterday.  They were able to hook a few Steelhead even though this was their first time ever fishing for Steelhead.  This matches what the creel report is now telling us.  Over the weekend all anglers interviewed averaged out to about 3.7 hours of fishing for each Steelhead caught.

We are in peak Grande Ronde River Steelhead Season.  Come on over and join us for a day on the river.

 

Keep reading if you are interested in hearing what Jeff Yanke from ODFW has to say about the fish counts thus far.

 

The most recent estimate at Bonneville Dam is 18,972 (Grande Ronde and Imnaha combined).  This remains the second-highest estimate since I started doing these estimates during the 2010-11 run year.

 

  • We estimated that 1,127 and 1,210 hatchery steelhead crossed McNary and Ice Harbor dams, respectively, during the past two weeks.

 

  • The most significant movement occurred at Lower Granite Dam, where we estimated that 2,224 hatchery steelhead crossed during the past two weeks.  Of those 2,224 – we estimated that only 462 were Imnaha origin, and the remaining 1,762 were bound for the Grande Ronde

 

  • Our size distributions seem to be generally holding up.  At Bonneville, 53% of the Grande Ronde and 36% of the Imnaha hatchery run were 2-salts.  At Lower Granite, 43% of the Grande Ronde and 39% of the Imnaha run are 2-salt.

 

  • Currently, we estimate that 48% of the fish that crossed Bonneville dam have migrated above Lower Granite.  During the last four years, the final ‘conversion’ rate has averaged 63%.  With a 63% conversion on this year’s run, we would expect to see just under 12,000 hatchery steelhead migrate over Lower Granite this year.

 

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