Upper Salmon River Steelhead Fishing Report (10-21-2026)

Hi everyone, this is the Upper Salmon River (USR) steelhead fishing report for October 20, 2026, and the data discussed in this report were collected from October 14 through October 18.

Angler effort and catch both began to increase slightly last week, especially over the weekend. Angler effort remained below what we have observed during the past few fall fisheries, but there were noticeably more anglers on the water compared to the previous week, with most of the effort observed downstream of North Fork in location code 15.

The only area where we encountered anglers who reported catching steelhead was also within location code 15. Anglers in that area averaged 45 hours per steelhead caught. We also heard second-hand reports of steelhead caught below the Middle Fork in location code 14, but we were unable to interview those anglers. Given how the season has progressed so far, we expect the fishery to start picking up some above North Fork this week.