Right now: 🟡 Active — 96% of a typical year's run still to come (peak Sep 29 at LWG)
How these fish move: Grande Ronde-bound adults take a median 56 days Bonneville→Lower Granite (middle half 34–75; 1,309 tagged fish); after Granite they stage in the mainstem and lower river — entry arrays fire a median 160 days later (that's overwinter holding, not swimming: the fish are present and fishable long before the arrays light up).
Run timing, year over year
Estimated cumulative Grande Ronde returns by day of year — each line one season,
this season darkest. Shaded band: how this season plays out if it keeps running like its
most similar past years. Scaled at Lower Granite; estimated, not a direct count.
Season totals by migration year
Estimated total Grande Ronde-bound steelhead per migration year (Jun–May,
labeled by ending year). PIT tags × published tagging rates — the same single source
every chart on the dashboard reads.
How these numbers are made. Steelhead carrying PIT tags are detected at dams and
in-river antennas; each tagged fish is expanded by its group's published tagging rate to
estimate untagged fish traveling with it. Levels are anchored to the Lower Granite census
and cross-checked against independent published sources (IDFG/ODFW run reconstructions,
dam-by-dam census bounds). Status timing for this river reads the Lower Granite count.
These are
estimates — treat year-to-year shape as more reliable than any single
year's absolute level. Full methodology on the
dashboard About tab.