The spring chinook fishing season on the Lewiston-to-Cherrylane section of the Clearwater River will close at 9 p.m. Friday.
Through Sunday, anglers on that stretch of river had caught and kept 1,320 hatchery spring chinook and are expected to reach the department’s target of about 1,600 by Friday.
Sections of the Clearwater River upstream of Cherrylane and the river’s North, Middle and South forks will remain open.
Joe DuPont, regional fisheries manager for the department at Lewiston, said the state is projecting the Clearwater River will have a total harvest share of just less than 4,600 adult hatchery chinook.
Chinook that are surplus to hatchery spawning quotas are available for harvest and split evenly between tribal and nontribal anglers — meaning each angler group can catch that many fish.
The department then attempts to manage fishing so that its portion of the harvest share is distributed throughout the Clearwater Basin and targets the section downstream of Cherrylane for about 35 percent of it.
Last week, Clearwater River anglers caught and kept 1,367 adult chinook with more than 1,071 of those coming from the Lewiston-to-Cherrylane section.
Anglers fishing between Cherrylane and Orofino caught 253 adult chinook last week and those on the North Fork caught 43.
The fishery on the lower Salmon and Little Salmon rivers that targets chinook bound for the Rapid River Hatchery near Riggins has a harvest share of 1,860.
Anglers there have caught and kept about 150 adult chinook. The Snake River in Hells Canyon has a harvest share of 690 adult chinook and anglers have caught about 330 of those.
DuPont’s weekly fishery update is available at bit.ly/4e0pIOZ.
