I fish the Hells Canyon area for steelhead. The counts are high, the ten year average has been surpassed but the fishing continues to be poor. Anyone fishing the the Snake tribs. having any luck? Can we really trust the fish counts? Beats me. I do know it has been real slow...

It's cOOOOOOLD. This fall the best catch rates were on the Snake from Calrkston on up. With the high water now its a decent bet that the bulk of the hatchery A runs are heading to where they were planted.

I've been down to Hells Canyon a couple times this fall / winter.
I've only seen two fish pulled out, at least in our groups. We are along the bank walking all the way down to Pages Landing.
I havn't gone back for a month now just cuz I don't want to work so hard to not catch anything.
I'll probably be headed back in January.

Just spent another three days beating the water at Hells Canyon. Yeah I'm real slow to believe the fishing can be this bad. Have also walked the bank to Stud Creek not for the fishing just for the good exercise. Three of us did manage to land two fish but according to my years past records this is poorrrrrrrrrrr fishingjavascript:emoticon('post', 'message', ':(')
Sad

Try the Grand Ronde?

I'm waiting a little longer to fish the GR, would like to camp down at RonDowa this winter, still needs more time before lots of fish are in there.