BY ANDY WALGAMOTT, NORTHWEST SPORTSMAN MAGAZINE
WDFW is today making it even more official what Northwest Sportsman reported earlier this week: “Icicle River will not open for spring Chinook fishing in 2026.”
So reads an agency press release that represents the culmination of a dramatic U-turn from just a week ago at this same hour when recreational anglers expected to be fishing the Leavenworth-area stream starting last Sunday at sunrise, but then received after-hours notice Friday evening that the opener had been postponed.
State fishery managers now say the “majority” of salmon headed back the Leavenworth National Fish Hatchery have swam through the Icicle’s “traditional fishing boundary” and that 2026’s run has “effectively concluded” based on passive integrated transponder, or PIT tag, readings at Rock Island Dam on the Columbia below the Wenatchee River, which the Icicle feeds into.
“Spring Chinook typically migrate through the Icicle River quickly, especially under low and clear water conditions. Fishing success depends on opening the river at a time that coincides with active migration,” said Chad Jackson, the regional Fish Program manager, in the press release. “It is unfortunate we were not able to open this fishery in 2026.”
WDFW reports that as of yesterday, 1,240 of the 1,630 springers forecasted to return to the hatchery have entered the broodstock collection ponds there, while “hundreds” of fish have also been observed in a pool just outside the facility’s fish ladder.
Meanwhile, tribal fisheries began today immediately below the ladder. Members of the Colville Confederated Tribes had a first salmon ceremony this morning, while Yakama Nation fishermen will come in Saturday.
WDFW’s press release also speaks to its decision to postpone, which they say was “due to concerns over infrastructure challenges at LNFH, temporary water systems to collect broodstock, low returns, and potential effects of harvest on broodstock collection efforts.”
The US Fish and Wildlife Service, which operates the hatchery, reported that in early May there was a leak in its main water intake from the creek to the facility, and that led to the discovery of a failing section of pipe. Without that source of water, 1 million smolts had to be moved to another hatchery and there was no way the fish ladder could operate.
Crews installed pumps that as of last Saturday were pumping enough water to operate the ladder and adult salmon holding ponds.
Since then, springers have piled in. On Wednesday morning, the hatchery reported 550 adults on site, and that figure had more than doubled as of yesterday, per WDFW. Hatchery managers report they need 1,000 fish to meet broodstock needs.
The 2026 Icicle spring Chinook forecast is below average, and the creek is also running pretty low for this time of year. A USGS gauge upstream near Snow Creek shows the Icicle’s at 754 cubic feet per second; the median and mean over 67 years of record are almost three times that at 2,150 and 2,180 cfs. The record low for today is 653 cfs following the snow drought winter of 2015.
This will go down as a frustrating episode. The initial scheduled WDFW opener might have yielded good fishing for the agency-license-buying public, though who is to say if the fish would have actually bit in that low water.
One thing is for sure: The clear flows of the Icicle will give all involved a chance to see their own reflection.
