Chinook Salmon Fishing Guide
Freshwater · Water temp 44–62°F (ideal 53°F)
Quick Facts
- Also called
- King salmon in Alaska, springer for the spring run, just salmon in the Great Lakes
- Spawns once and dies
- Semelparous. No post-spawn season and no second year for the same fish
- What this forecast covers
- Conditions on the day, not whether the run has arrived. Check a run report or fish counts for that
- The number that matters
- Water temperature. Find the low 50s and you have found the fish
- Typical size
- 15-30 lb, with fish over 40 lb caught every season in all three fisheries
- Range
- Pacific coast from California to Alaska, inland to Idaho, and all five Great Lakes
- Tackle
- Downrigger and a temperature probe in open water; heavy river gear on the run
Overview
Chinook salmon are the largest of the Pacific salmon and the fish three very different sets of anglers all call the same thing: king salmon in Alaska, chinook on the Pacific coast, and just salmon across the Great Lakes, where they were introduced in the 1960s and became the backbone of a sport fishery that had lost its own. Fish over thirty pounds are caught every season in all three places, and the Kenai River in Alaska has produced fish nearly three times that.
Chinook hold from about 44 to 62 degrees Fahrenheit with an ideal near 53. That ideal is the most directly useful number on this page, because chinook are a species anglers already locate by temperature rather than by structure. Great Lakes and Pacific trollers run a probe down with the gear and hunt the band between the high 40s and the mid 50s, on the reasoning that the temperature is where the bait is and the bait is where the salmon are. The figure matches: laboratory and field work put the adult preferred temperature at 11.7 degrees Celsius, which is 53 Fahrenheit almost exactly.
One biological fact separates chinook, along with coho and kokanee, from every other fish on this site. They are semelparous: they spawn once and they die. There is no post-spawn season, no recovering fish to catch through the winter, no second year for the same individual. A chinook run is a wave that arrives, peaks and is gone, and when it is over it is over in a way a steelhead run or a bass spawn never is. That shapes the whole calendar. The best fishing is in front of the spawn, when fish are staging off river mouths still feeding and at their heaviest, and there is nothing behind it.
Optimal Conditions
| water Temp | 44-62°F, ideal 53°F |
| air Temp | 30-78°F |
| wind | 3-15 mph ideal, tolerate up to 25 mph; a trolling chop is welcome |
| pressure | Moderate sensitivity, and outranked by water temperature and run timing |
| light | Low. Fish are up in the water column at first light and drop as the sun gets on the water |
| best Seasons | Staging run (August-September), then early summer open water (June-July) |
Seasonal Patterns
spring
Open-water fishing as lakes and inshore waters warm unevenly. Chinook follow the temperature rather than the calendar, holding wherever the 50-degree band sits, which in spring is often surprisingly shallow and close to shore. Pacific spring-run fish enter rivers from March in some systems, which is a genuinely separate fishery from the autumn one and the reason a single answer about salmon season will not do.
summer
The water stratifies and the fish go down with the temperature they want, often 60 to 120 feet in midsummer. This is downrigger fishing, and it is as close to arithmetic as angling gets: find the depth holding water in the low 50s, put the gear there, and work the temperature break. By late summer fish begin gathering near river mouths and the season turns.
fall
The staging run in August and September is the peak and the biggest seasonal lift we apply to this fish. Chinook mass off river mouths and in harbors, still feeding and at their maximum weight of the year, before pushing upstream. Once they enter the river they stop feeding and color up, and the fishery becomes one of provoking strikes from fish that no longer eat. Rain that raises the river is the trigger that moves them.
winter
For most of this species range there is no winter fishery, because the fish that ran in autumn are dead. What remains is open-water trolling for the following year class in the Great Lakes and on the Pacific coast, where immature fish keep feeding through the cold months, plus a handful of winter-run river fisheries in California and Oregon. Expect scattered fish rather than a season.
Best Time of Day to Catch Chinook Salmon
dawn
The peak, and by a clear margin. Chinook are up in the water column and close to shore at first light, which is why salmon boats leave harbor in the dark. The first two hours are worth more than the rest of the day put together in open water, and the advantage narrows only slightly in rivers.
midday
The weakest stretch in open water, as fish drop to the thermocline and away from the boat. Not unfishable, and downrigger anglers simply follow them down, but the shallow morning pattern is gone. In rivers the middle of the day is steadier, because holding fish are not moving much either way.
dusk
A solid second window, though it rarely matches the morning. Fish come back up as the light goes and the near-shore bite reopens for the last hour. Worth planning around if the morning is not available to you.
night
Better than most species in this guide, and specifically at river mouths and harbor lights where staging fish move shallow after dark. A minority fishery, but a real one, and the reason the overnight hours here are not scored at zero.
solunar
Moderate solunar sensitivity, and comfortably behind water temperature and run timing in what decides a day. Useful as a tiebreaker between two mornings that look otherwise identical.
Weather Response
Less disruptive than for most species. Chinook are a coldwater fish and a front that pulls surface temperatures down can improve things by bringing the band they want closer to the surface and closer to shore. What matters is where the 50-degree water ends up, not the pressure that moved it.
Warming pushes the temperature band deeper and further offshore, which means longer runs and more line out. Not bad fishing, just harder work. In rivers during the run, warm rain is the useful part rather than the warmth.
Settled weather in summer produces a stable thermocline and predictable depths, which is exactly what a trolling program wants. Long stable spells let you fish yesterday's numbers with confidence, and that is worth more for this species than for most.
The trigger for the river fishery. Rain raises rivers and pulls staging fish out of the harbors and up into fresh water, so a wet spell in late August or September moves the whole fishery upstream within a day or two. For open-water trolling rain matters much less, beyond the wind that usually comes with it.
Proven Techniques
Downrigger Trolling
The dominant open-water method and the one that makes temperature the master variable. Spoons, flasher-and-fly rigs and cut-bait heads run behind a downrigger ball at a depth chosen from a temperature probe rather than a guess. Fish the band in the low 50s, work the temperature break, and change depth before changing lures.
Flasher and Fly
A rotating flasher ahead of a small squid or fly imitates a salmon attacking a bait ball and pulls fish in from well outside the strike zone. The most productive open-water presentation for mature chinook and the standard rig from Lake Michigan to Puget Sound.
Back-Trolling Plugs
In rivers, a diving plug held in the current above holding water and worked slowly downstream provokes fish that have stopped feeding entirely. Chinook in fresh water strike out of aggression, so a bait sitting in their face for a long time beats one that passes quickly.
Drift Fishing Roe
Cured salmon eggs drifted along the bottom through holding water. The traditional river method across the Pacific Northwest and Alaska, and still the most effective way to reach fish stacked in deep slots and tailouts on the run.
Casting Spoons at River Mouths
Where fish stage before entering a river, a heavy casting spoon worked from a pier, breakwall or small boat reaches feeding chinook without a trolling setup. This is the most accessible chinook fishing there is, and in the Great Lakes it draws crowds to harbor piers every August.
Chinook Salmon vs Steelhead
Both are anadromous, both run the same rivers, and anglers often fish for them in the same season with much of the same gear. The difference that governs everything is that one of them is going to die.
| Chinook Salmon | Steelhead | |
|---|---|---|
| After spawning | Dies. The run ends and does not resume | Survives, drops back downstream and may return in later years |
| Best time of day | Dawn, decisively, especially in open water | The middle of the day in winter, because the river has to warm |
| How you find them | By water temperature, with a probe on the downrigger | By flow and by reading holding water |
| Feeding in fresh water | Stops on entering the river; strikes are aggression | Also largely stops, but eats salmon eggs in autumn |
| Peak season | Late summer staging, August into September | Late winter, February into March |
| Where most are caught | Open water, trolling, before they ever reach a river | In the river, on foot or from a drift boat |
Chasing the other one? Read the steelhead guide.
Chinook Salmon Fishing Questions
Can a fishing forecast predict salmon fishing?
Partly, and the same caveat applies as for steelhead. Whether chinook are in your river or off your port on a given day depends on run timing, hatchery returns and ocean or lake survival, and no weather-based forecast knows any of that. Check a run report or a fish counting facility. What a forecast can score is what decides the day once fish are around, and for chinook that is unusually tractable, because water temperature is both the thing that positions this fish and the thing this site weights most heavily. Find the low 50s and you have found the fish.
What water temperature is best for chinook salmon?
Around 53 degrees Fahrenheit, in a band from roughly 44 to 62. This is the rare case where the laboratory number and the angling practice agree exactly: measured adult preferred temperature comes out at 11.7 degrees Celsius, which is 53 Fahrenheit, and trollers across the Great Lakes and the Pacific coast hunt the band between the high 40s and the mid 50s with a temperature probe on the downrigger. The reasoning anglers use is that the temperature is where the bait is and the bait is where the salmon are, and it holds up.
Do chinook salmon die after spawning?
Yes, all of them. Chinook are semelparous, meaning they spawn once and die shortly afterwards, and of the other species on this site only coho and kokanee share it. There is no post-spawn recovery period, no over-wintering fish to catch, and no second season for the same individual. It shapes the entire calendar: the best fishing is in front of the spawn, when fish stage off river mouths still feeding and at their heaviest weight of the year, and there is nothing at all behind it. A steelhead run has a tail. A chinook run does not.
What is the best time of day for chinook?
Dawn, and by a wide margin in open water. Chinook sit high in the water column and close to shore at first light, which is why salmon boats leave harbor in the dark, and the first couple of hours are commonly worth more than the whole rest of the day. As the sun gets on the water fish drop to the thermocline and move offshore. Trollers follow them down rather than going home. Evening brings a second, smaller window, and river mouths after dark are a genuine minority fishery rather than a myth.
When is chinook salmon season?
It depends on which fishery and which run, which is why one answer will not do. Great Lakes chinook are caught in open water from spring through summer and stage off river mouths in August and September before running the tributaries. Pacific fall-run fish do broadly the same on a coastal scale. Pacific spring-run chinook, the springers, enter rivers from March and are a separate and highly prized fishery. Alaska king season runs through the short northern summer, with the Kenai peaking in July. Across all of them the staging period just before fish enter fresh water is the best of the year.
Why are there chinook salmon in the Great Lakes?
They were put there. Chinook were introduced to the Great Lakes in the 1960s, primarily to control an exploding population of introduced alewife that had overwhelmed the lakes after the native predators collapsed under sea lamprey pressure and overfishing. It worked, and it accidentally created one of the largest salmon sport fisheries in the world in a place with no native salmon at all. The fish still run tributaries every autumn and spawn, though most Great Lakes chinook are sustained by a mix of natural reproduction and stocking rather than by natural reproduction alone.
Best Months for Chinook Salmon
These are the months our scoring can lift chinook salmon activity for pre-spawn or autumn feeding. Where one overlaps the spawn, the water temperature decides which applies. Open one for that month's calendar.
Where Chinook Salmon Are Stocked
1 of the 26 states with a trout stocking page here stock chinook salmon. Each page says when the trucks run and where the agency posts its schedule.
Trout stocking schedules for every state we coverWhere to Fish for Chinook Salmon
3 regional guides list chinook salmon among their top species.
Read Next
On the charts: Chinook Salmon on the water temperature chartThe spawn calendar for September
Related Species
Get Today's Chinook Salmon Forecast
See how conditions line up for chinook salmon at your location right now.
Check Chinook Salmon ForecastSpotted something out of date or plain wrong here? Tell us and we will check it.