6-10 SS Steelie Season

It is time to get on the river. Our fly fishing correspondent Josh Mills gives us a timeline for getting out there. “As we get into June here, you can look around the corner and the summer season on the Columbia River and its tributaries are coming up. The majority of the fish enter the Columbia system starting in June maybe even to September depending on where they are headed. If you watch the dam count starting at Bonneville, you see them increasing from now through July and August. But for some of the first rivers to come into shape in terms of overall fishing, there is the Willamette that comes off the Columbia but you can also take a peek at the Deschutes River and as you progress up the system, but it really culminates in Lewiston and the tributaries around Lewiston, usually right around August and September. There is usually a pretty good number of catchable fish over Lower Granite Dam and the majority of them tend to go up into the Clearwater River because  of the water being a little bit colder and then it really gets good into September and October on the Snake River, Grand Ronde and then lastly, rivers like the Salmon but summer steelhead season will go all the way from gosh the first one I caught was in Lewiston  was July 15 and the latest that I have caught fish is in March. It is going to fire up any time now and will be full time summer steelhead season before you know it.