Courtesy of Skip Rudd - Pocatello’s Skip Rudd lands a salmon near Riggins last weekend.

This weekend should be one of the best spring salmon fishing weekends of the year on the Salmon and Little Salmon rivers near Riggins.

The uncommonly late run of spring salmon are finally arriving and the water is dropping.

So far the salmon fishing in the Little Salmon River has been hit and miss because of high flows and limited numbers of fish. The Rapid River Hatchery, where the run of salmon originates, had 485 returnees last week. This number is expected to soar by the end of this week.

The Salmon River at Riggins has been running near 30,000 cfs and the Little Salmon at up to 3,000 cfs making both rivers extremely tough to hook and then land fish.

I have boated the Salmon River below Riggins at 30,000 cfs. Mistakes can be dangerous. Veteran anglers pick their spots to fish with care.

The river is predicted to drop below 20,000 early this week and be very fishable by this coming weekend. This section of the river is expected to close to salmon fishing on Sunday. It may or may not reopen depending on the Idaho Department of Fish and Game’s review of migrating salmon numbers.

Experienced boaters are back-trolling roe, shrimp and eggs and lures in this section of the Salmon River. Catch rates are best when the water is dropping and below 18,000 cfs. Some boaters in high water simply beach their boats and cast out of the stern.

The Little Salmon River looks like a series of waterfalls at 3,000 cfs, and I always marvel at the number of fish caught in this torrent of water. Many anglers use 30- to 40-pound test line to horse the 10- to 20-pound salmon to shore. It is not a pretty fishery at 3,000 cfs.

Things change at 2,000 cfs and the prediction is for around 1,500 cfs this weekend. The water smoothes out, pools appear and eddies to land fish in pocket the shoreline.

At this point, anglers can actually play the fish instead of horsing them to shore. The odds still favor the fish since all they simply have to do is turn and run with the current snapping even 40-pound test line or streaking around a corner causing the line to rub against rocks until it frays and breaks.

The crowds have thinned, said Pocatello-based fisheries biologist Dick Scully, who fished there last weekend. High water, the one-fish limit per day limit and a small, late run kept them on the sideline.

Skip Rudd of Pocatello kept the one salmon he hooked on his second cast of the morning at 5:15 a.m. last week ending his salmon fishing. Once a salmon is kept the angler can no longer continue to fish for salmon that day.

“Now that was a short day’s fishing,” said Rudd. “But then I might not have hook and land another fish all day.”

Most of the salmon caught this year have been in the 9- to 12-pound range. Some bigger fish are expected to arrive while 6- to 9-pounds are also prevalent.

Weekly catch rates are posted on the Fish and Game’s Web site.

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Idaho Fish and Game:

http://fishandgame.idaho.gov/