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About Fishing Idaho's Salmon River

Idaho Fly Fishing

Idaho  has some of the best-known trout streams in country--and also some of the best - but least-known trout hideouts.  Most Idaho fly fishing trips offer a few hours of fishing, but on the Middle Fork of the Salmon fishing time is measured in days.

The Middle Fork is a wilderness river, one hundred miles between road accesses.  A typical float trip last six days. While many of our customers are primarily interested in a wilderness whitewater trip,  we can provide a fishing focus by using two-passenger McKenzie River drift boats or small inflatable boats. To give you the best fishing access we leave camp as soon as you are done with breakfast, instead of waiting for the camp crew to load, and stay out on the river until the camp crew has the camp set up. When the focus of the trip is fishing. we spend more hours on the river each day than conventional rafts.

Middle Fork fly fishing is primarily for west-slope cut-throat trout. This is a relatively high elevation stream with a short growing season, in a granite drainage, with many months of cold water.  Mature cut-throat trout typically are 12-15 inches, and rarely exceed that length. There are also a lot of steelhead smolts, about 7-8 inches, resembling small rainbow trout.  There are occasional mature, native rainbows  similar in size to the cut-throat.  If you fish deep, you will catch bull trout, especially with spinners.  We seldom take them on top with dry flies.

While fish aren’t huge, numbers are pretty good.  Thirty to forty fish per day per boat is a reasonable expectation when fishing from drift boats.  With good fishing and good fishermen, that can be doubled.  Fishing is catch-and-release.

There usually is not a great deal of surface activity by trout on the Middle Fork.   Occasionally on the upper river there will be very heavy caddis hatchs, but still not a lot of surface activity by fish.  There are salmon fly hatchs, but not of the scale of the southwest Montana streams. 

Later in the summer there is a lot of grasshopper activity.  The Middle Fork provides good dry-fly opportunity, with fish being not especially particular.   Matching fly to particular emerging insects is not a major issue.  Common patterns are elk-hair caddis, parachute adams, stimulators, grasshoppers, and humpies--but many flies will work just fine.   I mostly use a simple elkhair caddis, size 8, with a red body. 

Some people scoff at that as being old-fashioned and obsolete, but if fishing is slow the situation is rarely improved by  a different pattern.    For fishermen who can handle a dropper, adding a beadhead (copper john, pheasant tail, etc.) can be very effective.  It can also be a pain in the neck (literally) if casting skill is a little rough--may be more trouble than it is worth. 

I have always been more concerned about placement of the fly than pattern.  Tournament-distance casting is not necessary if the boatman does his job.  A moderate length but accurate cast is all that is needed.  Wind is usually not an issue on the Middle Fork.  A five-weight rod works very well.  A heavier rod can get tiring after a long day.  Usual fishing water includes eddy lines, cushions above rocks, and next to cliffs.

Trout fishing on the Middle Fork of the Salmon is primarily a summer activity.  The season (even though catch-and-release) does not open until Memorial Day.  In normal years the river is too high to effectively fish at that time, and remains high until late June.  The Middle Fork is dam-free, so flow is a function of snow-melt.  Fishing is better at river levels below about four feet on the guage, which in a normal water year means late June-early July  on through the summer.  In low water years, the river can be low enough to fish throughout June, and fishing is good then.

During July and August, water temperatures are typically mid-fifties through sixties, with about five degrees increase from daylight til mid-afternoon, and similar loss overnight.  River temperature increases as the trip progresses, with loss of elevation, and also increases as the snow run-off decreases toward mid-summer.   

During the heat of the summer, late July to early August, the river temperature can reach 70, especially in low-water years.  Fishing slows greatly at that temperature.  However, 70 degrees is not an every-year event.  July and August are the driest two months, with normally clear water.  September is often touted as a good fishing month, and it is, but  the chance of rain increases.  With rain comes the chance of runoff from areas of recent forest fires, creating muddy, unfishable water.  Often storms producing run-off are very localized, with a particular tributary causing the river to be off-color, but other tributary streams may be fishable.  There are several tributary streams that are large enough to fish, with a trail along them.  After September, weather becomes pretty chilly  for camping and whitewater, and  there is little activity on the river.  By late October, there is often ice floating down the river.

The classic Middle Fork fishing trip uses McKenzie River drift boats.  These boats are light and maneuverable, providing maximum fishing opportunity from the boat as we drift downstream.   McKenzie boats were developed to fish in fast water.  We can hold in eddies to give you time to work a seam, position you to drift a fly to a rock, reach water that is unavailable to a raft normally loaded.   They are very responsive, comfortable--and fragile. 

Inflatable boats, both conventional  and cataraft styles, are often equiped with knee braces, etc, to facilitate fly casting.  If kept light, they are nearly as nimble as a McKenzie, more forgiving of the occasional bumped rock, and can be flown into a river-side airstrip during low-water conditions.  They are functional,  but they are not as comfortable, convenient, or as dry in whitewater as a McKenzie.  If you drop your scissors in an inflatable, they are in the bilge under a tube or the bottom of the river.  An unexpected wave can wash unsecured tackle over the side, while that is much less likely in a McKenzie.  And there is something special about a McKenzie River drift boat in fast water.
  
 Often our McKenzie fishermen are couples.  If one of the partners has limited fly fishing experience, boatmen will help with casting technique.  A week-long trip in a drift boat on the Middle Fork with develope anyone’s fishing skills, and particularly a person just getting started.

Not all Salmon whitewater outfitters are particularly interested  in fishing.  Unless arrangements are made for a fishing-focused trip, you may be on your own, fishing from camp or from a loaded  inflatable boat as you float in mid-stream.  Your boatman may be a fisherman, or may not know a fly from a spinner.  

Fishing the Middle Fork of the Salmon from a drift boat, camping on the river bank each night, is one of the most memorable, classic Idaho fly fishing trips.  A pitfal of fishing the Middle Fork is that a person easily becomes so absorbed by the fishing that the beauty of a mile-deep canyon passes by unnoticed.

Steelhead Fishing:

 Our most exciting fishing is for steelhead. These 5-15 lb. fish have a life history similar to salmon, coming into the river from the Pacific in early fall to over winter and spawn in early spring.  Some of these fish are “wild” fish, which are released, but many are hatchery-raised, and can be kept.

Day  Steelhead Fishing Trips: Salmon City area

 From September through March, water conditions permitting, we fish for steelhead by the day near Salmon, floating in drift boats through ranch lands with only limited road access.  We fish Hot-shots from the boat, and stop to cast from the bank for variety. The river is smaller in this area, so fish location can be predicted with more precision than farther downstream. This benefits the fly fisherman in particular.  Since a drift boat carries only two fishermen, a guide can provide more individual attention than on a boat with larger capacity. This is a very scenic area, with frequent views of the Continental Divide. We may see otter, deer, geese, or bald eagles as we float.  Fishermen usually stay in a motel in Salmon, and fish one or more days. We furnish lunch, tackle and carry a heater in the boat.

Though the steelhead season opens the first of September, usually fishable numbers don’t arrive in the Salmon area until the middle of October.  Fish remain in the area until late March or early April, roughly the beginning of spawning.  After this, most steelhead are upstream, in the Challis or Stanley area.  Ice interferes with steelhead fishing in winter, though there are ice-free days or afternoons scattered throughout the winter.   While ice may arrive in the Salmon area in early November  in some years, usually we expect to fish until mid-November, and sometimes later.  Usually the ice jams break up in late February or early March, allowing fishing through March.

Fishing methods can include fly fishing and casting spoons or bouncing lead, but using hot-shots, or plugs, from the drift boat is a very effective method, especially for fishermen who are relatively new to steelheading.  The drift boats provide access to water that can be difficult to reach from the road.  Especially in the Salmon area,  there are frequent changes in the river bed that mean changes in steelhead holding water.  A guide who is current on these changes can be a great advantage.  A good fisherman who hasn’t fished this water for a few seasons will have a fair amount of catching up to do. 

In recent years,  fly fishing for steelhead has become more popular.   Some of the best fly fishing in Idaho for steelhead is in the Salmon area, where the river is smaller and fish can be more easily pinpointed than in the larger water downstream.  Fly fishing for steelhead is best in mid-fall, while water temperature is still in the 40s or higher.  Often this becomes a balancing act.  If you fish too early, there may not be enough fish to be productive.  Too late results in water temperatures that are too cold for best response to a fly.  Usually  the last half of October provides a good opportunity for fly fishing.

Multi-day steelhead fishing:

   Main Salmon Lodge trips:

We can arrange steelhead trips on the Main Salmon in mid-to-late October on which we stay in lodges each night instead of camping. We use the McKenzie boats on these trips. The lodges offer a degree of comfort over camping at this time of year, especially if the weather turns marginal. We do not have much bird hunting opportunity on this section of the river. It is within the River of No Return Wilderness Area (now known as Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness Area), and more isolated than the Lower Salmon. We see bighorn sheep and other wildlife here. We will see some jet boats, but they thin out a few miles from the launch sites. Usual trip length is 5 days.  This type of trip has been popular for years on the Rogue River, but has not caught on here.  Several jet-boat outfitters fish this area from riverside lodges, but drift boating this water is a unique experience, and very effective.

Fall Season-Steelhead/Chukar Trips  

From late September through mid-October, we offer five-day trips on the Lower Salmon, fishing for steelhead and hunting chukar partridge. We may also fish for small mouth bass, trout, or sturgeon.  This is primarily a combination trip--on a particular trip focus will depend on interests of the participants and which activity is productive at the time.   There is some good whitewater, primarily in a half-day segment of the river .

We float in two-passenger McKenzie River drift boats.   A camp boat breaks down camp after we leave in the morning, and has camp set up, with tents, kitchen shelter, chairs, dining tables, and lanterns set up, waiting to throw steaks on the grill, when fishermen arrive for the night. This enables us to start fishing early and stay on the river through evening shadows.

Days are spent drifting, fishing from the boat in productive water, watching for a covey of chukars on the bank, sometimes tying up to walk into the hills for birds. We run some major whitewater, through remote canyon scenery. Steelhead fishing is primarily backtrolling from the boat, though fly fishing is an option in some runs. We sometimes do a little sturgeon fishing on these trips.  On the earlier trips, when the river temperature is warmer, we catch smallmouth bass.

Chukar partridge are among the most challenging of western game birds.   We hunt rugged country.   The canyon here is about three thousand feet deep; chukar may be close to the river, especially in dry conditions, or we may have to climb for them.   You may not have good footing when a covey flushes; I have missed opportunities because I was holding on to a bush with one hand to keep from sliding down the slope.  You can get any kind of shot--rising, flushing below and diving, overhead, incoming.  Eventually you may even get a classic covey rise with both feet on flat ground.  There is a saying that you get the first bird for sport--and the rest for revenge.  Limits are generous--and mostly pointless.  But there is a great satisfaction in making those difficult shots.
 
 You will frequently wake up to hear chukars calling near camp at daylight. You can hunt from camp, or pull over to hunt during the day. We have dogs available or you can bring your own. During dry periods, chukars are very close to the river. If we have had rain, we may find some birds close to the river, but we have to do more walking. Some hunting is in easy terrain, but serious hunters will find themselves in rugged country. Much of this area is accessible only by boat, so hunting pressure is low.
 
 The Lower Salmon is excellent chukar habitat, with populations dependent on winter and nesting conditions.  Success also depends on weather immediately prior to the trip; birds are closer to water sources, such as the river, during dry periods, but are more scattered after a rain. Daytime temperatures in clear weather are in the 70's, with possibility of frosty mornings. We have some good rapids on this trip, but the McKenzie boats are very dry. They are the most comfortable of whitewater boats.

 Set your hook in a steelhead as long as your arm, and you'll know why they're the premium game fish in the Northwest. Taste fresh steelhead fillets grilled over driftwood coals...chukar from the dutch oven... you're living good!

Main Salmon fishing:

 Fishing on summer trips on the Main Salmon is an incidental activity, primarily due to water temperature, but adds a bit of spice to a trip.  We can find trout in the cooler tributary streams, or near the mouths of those streams.  Catch rate is good, but locations are limited.  There are some rough fish that can be caught from our sandbar camps, which do provide an activity for younger kids.
 In the fall, when steelhead are in the river, we can do a lodge-to-lodge trip with drift boats that is a memorable experience.

Lower Salmon bass fishing:

 On the Lower Salmon in  late summer into early fall,  small mouth bass fishing is very good. Mepps spinners in gold or red/white, #2, and Panther Martins or roostertails are good.  Rapalas are popular, as well as lead-headed jigs. A Rebel crawdad is a good plug.

There are some trout, and in some years trout fishing is good--primarily depending on the stocking policies of the Fish and Game Department.  There are several sturgeon holes, with fish commonly of  four to six feet.  We sometimes catch them, but they must be released.
 
 
For More Information: Call 1-208-756-4167 to Request Information on Trips and Availability.

And be sure to keep an eye on our Fishing Reports which we keep updated regularly.