06/01/2018 Chinook Update

Writing after a bit of a delay, we've been out fishing! The Chinook return has been active, we've been hooking up on multiple fishing on the Main Salmon River. We've worked too Rapid River a bit, but fish are coming in looking extremely tired, so fish have been stopping up before the last push. Hits have been very soft, but they've been hitting well on egg patterns and anything shrimp like. We've also been trying other purple, bright, and other salmon fly patterns, but most attention has been on the above. There's enough fish in spots, we've been watching them jump and swim up the eddies just before the riffles, but haven't seen many fishing actually start pushing up.

The trick of course in the high water has been to get your fly down. The more you snag, the better (unless you don't get it back). We've gotten bites after unsnagging flies off the bottom. 

For the weekend forecast, we anticipate fish getting rested and moving up Rapid River this weekend, especially when water levels start coming down. Fish are peaking over Little Goose dam, so the fish should be arriving steadily through the next 7 days. We'll continue to keep our eyes on the dam fish counts and fish tags bound for Rapid River Hatchery. When we're not on the river.