Clearwater River

As James Dawson reports, the state's water board will consider the project next month.

The new pipeline would funnel water from Dworshak Reservoir to the Dworshak and Clearwater Federal Fish Hatcheries to raise more Chinook salmon and steelhead smolts.

The hatcheries currently pump water from the nearby Clearwater River, but...

That water supply was inadequate in volume to completely water up all of the rearing containers.

That's Ed Shriver, a former Idaho Fish and Game director who now serves on a regional energy and environmental group.

But first, if you're a steelhead angler, it's going to come as no surprise that this year's returns have been some of the lowest on record.

Our fisheries managers have been watching the charts like a hawk and ultimately made the decision to close steelhead harvest in the Clearwater River Basin.

Here's more on that story.

Idaho Fish and Game is closing all steelhead harvest in the Clearwater River Basin, effective at the end of fishing hours on Wednesday, October 21st.

Anglers will still be able to fish for steelhead in the Clearwater River Basin under catch and release regulations, but harvest of steelhead will be closed for the remainder of the 2026 season.

Steelhead returns have been historically low this year, and counts of steelhead passing Bonneville Dam are the lowest ever recorded since the dam was constructed in 1938.

Snake River stocks, including returns to the Clearwater, are also near historic lows, and management actions are required to meet hatchery broodstock needs.

The steelhead harvest season has been open in the Clearwater River since early September, and during the last month, anglers have harvested the majority of the allowable share of hatchery fish returning to the Clearwater Basin.

Then they journeyed on.

They traveled down the Clearwater to the Snake River and then on to the Columbia.

When they understood that they at last had reached that river of the west which flowed into the bitter waters, they began to build canoes.

Travel by water is much quicker and easier than by land in a new country.

Methods Employed Boats, horses, and afoot.

The Route Up the Missouri River to its sources in present Montana, across the Bitterroot Mountains into present Idaho, by way of the Clearwater River, the Snake River, and the Columbia River to the Pacific Ocean.

The Party Out of St. Louis 45 The Party Who Went Through 33 The Two Captains 23 American Soldiers 5 French Canadian and French Indian Boatmen and Interpreters 1 Negro Servant 1 Indian Woman Guide and 1 Baby Deaths, one.

Seriously injured, one.

"Be some other river," and he laughed.

Not for considerable time did he explain to his comrades that Koos Koos Kee was only Indian for, "This is not the river.

It is some other river." But the Koos Koos Kee, or Clearwater River, does the stream remain unto this day.

"More mountains, hurrah, more mountains," lamented Patrick Gass when the Indian road left the banks of the stony Koos Koos Kee and through the roughest kind of a country started upward again.

Then they journeyed on.

They traveled down the Clearwater to the Snake River and then on to the Columbia.

When they understood that they at last had reached that river of the West which flowed into the bitter waters, they began to build canoes.

Travel by water is much quicker and easier than by land in a new country.

Anglers can only catch two adult steelhead per day across Idaho under the new limits imposed earlier this month.

On the Clearwater River, only one of those fish can be longer than 28 inches.

As the Lewiston Tribune first reported, the return forecast is less than half of what fishery managers expected earlier this year.

More than 133,000 steelhead were predicted to reach Bonneville Dam, but that's now been downgraded to about 62,000 fish.