Chinook Salmon Fishing at Riggins Idaho

Chinook salmon have arrived at Riggins Idaho and along with the salmon so have the salmon anglers. As the salmon are staging at the mouth of the Little Salmon River waiting for the water temperatures to rise before beginning their migration up the Little Salmon anglers are making the most of this opportunity lining the bank and hoping to entice a chinook to their line. Although the river is crowded at many of the popular fishing wholes anglers are still doing very well and many are going home with their limit of salmon for the day! The Little Salmon is still running high and the water temperature is still cold enough that many of the salmon are holding in holes just below the mouth of the river. This annual phenomenon of the staging in the Main salmon offer anglers a rare and exciting chance to hook into these majestic fish in numbers that really are not common. They normally stage for a few days however this year with the weather conditions keeping the Little Salmon from warming it is making for great fishing opportunities. While many anglers are joining in with the crowds there are a number of spots available for the angler who is willing to search them out if you are one of those anglers who prefer to have room to fish and time to enjoy the fight against the salmon. Look for seams of water anywhere below Riggins and give them a try it seems that they are stacked in many of the wholes all along the Main Salmon River now as we found out over the last couple of days. With a little searching and trial and error you will be able to find a whole which is holding good numbers of fish. I expect over the next several days as the temperature rises that they will start moving up the little salmon as well and it to will be offering some great fishing this year. A Good friend of me and fishing buddy Randy has a young pup which enjoyed pointing out the fish as we fought to bring them under control. It seemed as though he was enjoying the excitement just as much as we were he didn't let a fish get by that he wasn't right there and keeping an eye on what was going on and he got very up set if we lost the fish before we got it into the net. As you can see Louie was right there making sure that we were taking care of business and not letting the salmon get away before we had it in the net. Some of the Salmon we were able to get into the net they were averaging 10 to 12lbs and were 30 to 32 inches long however we did get a couple that were over 15lbs my camera batteries died before I was able to get pictures of them though. I know I know another fish story I'll get some fresh batteries before I head back so I can get you some Pictures of the larger fish just to verify this story though. Grab your Gear and come on down to Riggins and join in the excitement this year is turning out to be a very good year as we hooked over forty salmon between the four of us fishing over to days and this is when the weather was cold and wet now that the weather has straightened up it should only improve. RR Smith Salmon, Steelhead, and Trout Gear