Yankee Fork Salmon River Drainage

Twin Lakes, Payette Crest, Salmon River Mountains.

The Yankee Fork Salmon River flows 26 miles from its headwaters to the Salmon River at river mile 367.1. The drainage area is 195 square miles. Soils are primarily Idaho Batholith granitics which produce infertile streams.

Despite extensive mining, Yankee Fork continues to support runs of chinook salmon and steelhead. Shoshone-Bannock Tribal biologists have been augmenting the chinook population with hatchery juvenile releases from selected dredge ponds. Hatchery steelhead have also been outplanted into this drainage. Resident species include rainbow trout, bull trout, and cutthroat trout. The dredge ponds are stocked with catchable rainbow trout during the summer months.

Written and compiled by Jacqueline Harvey 1999.