Palouse River...good fishing there??

[ELKBURGER]

I was down near Hooper last weekend and was curious if there was good fishing in the Palouse river? Maybe steelhead?

[LDennis24]

The Palouse river isn't a very good river to fish. The steelhead can't make it up Palouse Fall's. Nothing can, not even a mountain goat! It would be cool if they could. Fishing the Palouse you will catch alot of sucker's and chub's and very few trout. If you find a good stretch with calm water you can catch some decent smallmouth's where the rip rap starts or ends in the rapids. You will see alot of speckled dace minnows and up near Rock creek you can catch some nice Browns but thats about it. It's not a very good fishery.

[Bill W]

I've heard there's good smallmouth in there.  From a personal experience I can say that in the area of Hooper the Palouse does put out some of the biggest squawfish I've seen.  I threw some spinners on a rockchuck trip years ago.  The squawfish liked the spinners.

[Maverick]

It always looked like a good place to fish when I drove by.

[LDennis24]

I'm rethinking what I said about steelhead. They released several thousand steelhead in Rock Lake this year and if they swim down rock creek they will be in the Palouse river but they're not ocean run fish of course. If your gonna be around fishing bring a boat and go out on Rock Lake and catch some browns. Use Husky Jerk's and work the shallower area's around 15-20ft and you might catch a dandy 20 incher. I've caught several bigger than that. Rock is strictly a boat lake though for good fishing. And always bring a life vest for everyone on the boat when your out there. If the wind blows the lake can get pretty choppy and you have to go into the wind to get back to the launch. It's very deep and cold.

[zike]

There's some good catfishing in the spring.

[UBA]

Any walleye in the spring?

[Boss .300 winmag]

I lived on it as a kid above the falls, carp carp, and more carp. 

With low flows in the summer it gets to warm to hold trout above the falls.

[LDennis24]

Yeah I was kind of lumping Carp, Squawfish, Chub's and the like as sucker's, mud fish... No walleye at all. Rock Lake is an excellent trout fishery and walleye would just ruin it IMO.

[zike]

I never caught any walleye, but I heard of them being caught. There's better places for walleye though. There's some fair sturgeon fishing and below the dam they fish the "wall" for steelhead and salmon.

[Maverick]

Walleye get caught in the palouse between the falls and the snake river. Bass and catfish are also caught in there.

[hunt_fish]

At the mouth of the Palouse it's good for catfish and I've caught walleye there too in the spring, they fish the mouth of the Palouse and the mouth of the Tucannon in the spring for walleye.  I've caught a couple smallmouth there too but I've heard it's better if you can trek down the rocks at the Palouse Falls and hike in there during the spring.  I know a guy said him and 2 buddies had non stop action one day when I camped there in mid may.

[Bill W]

there's a difference between up at Hooper and below the falls.  Below the falls the fish species are the same as what's in the Snake River.

I think the OP was interested in what's available upriver.

[Sitka_Blacktail]

While hunting near the Palouse River between St John and Endicott I did some fishing and can report that the smallmouth fishing was outstanding.

[ELKBURGER]

Lots of great replies, thanks guys!