Fly Fishing Johns Creek, Idaho: North Idaho Cutthroat Water

Twenty-One Miles from Grangeville

Johns Creek is a South Fork Clearwater tributary in Idaho County, in the north-central part of the state. Fish and Game maps it at 19.6 miles. It flows north out of the Gospel-Hump country and enters the South Fork from the south side, along Idaho Highway 14 between Grangeville and Elk City.

The Forest Service puts the mouth about 21 road miles from Grangeville. From the east end of town, turn south on the Grangeville Salmon Road and go left at the drive-in theater toward Mount Idaho. Climb the Mount Idaho Grade and follow Highway 14 up the canyon toward Elk City.

Watch for the Forest Service sign for Johns Creek and a footbridge over the river.

That footbridge is the whole access story. The parking area sits on the highway side of the South Fork. The creek and its trails are on the far bank, reached by the pack bridge. Some of those trails lead into the Gospel-Hump Wilderness, 206,000 acres set aside in 1978.

Highway 14 here “winds through the forested canyon with sections of rugged granite outcroppings,” in the Forest Service’s words. Upstream of the creek the river picks up Tenmile Creek at Golden. Downstream it takes in Meadow Creek and Mill Creek, then drops into a gorge up to 2,000 feet deep before it swings north near Grangeville.

For more small waters in this state, see our Idaho secret waters guide.

Regulations (Checked September 2026)

Johns Creek is not named in Idaho’s 2025 to 2027 rule book, and Fish and Game’s Fishing Planner page says plainly, “No Special Rules for Johns Creek.” So Clearwater Region general rules apply on the creek. The South Fork at its mouth is another matter, covered below.

The 20-inch line matters more here than on most small creeks. The rule book defines a steelhead as a rainbow trout longer than 20 inches in the Clearwater drainage below Dworshak Dam. Fishing for steelhead is prohibited unless a season is open for that water, and none is open on Johns Creek.

The South Fork Clearwater River at the mouth carries its own special rule. Cutthroat trout are catch-and-release only, and single-pointed barbless hooks are required while fishing for steelhead and salmon. Cross the bridge and the two-trout limit applies again, cutthroat included.

The South Fork also has a steelhead season, from the mouth up to the confluence of the American and Red rivers. Only hatchery fish with a clipped adipose fin may be kept.

Coho and fall Chinook seasons also run on the South Fork below Red River in the fall. Spring Chinook seasons are set each year by proclamation, usually between April and August. Check the current proclamation before you fish the river for salmon. The Clearwater Region office answers at (208) 799-5010.

The Fish: Wild, Never Stocked

Fish and Game has no stocking record for Johns Creek. Everything in it is wild. The department’s surveys, run in 2013, 2017, 2022, and 2024, read like a roll call of the Clearwater’s native fish.

The 2024 survey found Chinook salmon, coho salmon, cutthroat trout, steelhead, whitefish, chiselmouth, and sculpin. The 2022 survey added bull trout, westslope cutthroat, mountain whitefish, and speckled dace. Rainbow trout show up in 2017, and brook trout and suckers in 2013.

The steelhead and Chinook in those lists are mostly juveniles. Adults spawn in the drainage, and their young rear in the creek for a year or more before they head for the ocean.

Fish and Game’s 2025 to 2030 fisheries plan lists Johns Creek at 20 miles with steelhead, spring Chinook, cutthroat, rainbow, and bull trout, all wild and native. Its direction is to manage for natural production of steelhead and Chinook and to monitor parr abundance. Rainbow and cutthroat are managed for harvest while keeping their numbers stable or growing.

So the cutthroat and small rainbows you catch are the fish the state expects you to keep a couple of. The parr you catch by accident are the future of the South Fork steelhead run. Handle them wet and get them back fast.

The Dam That Emptied the South Fork

The old advice about this creek blamed the dams on the lower Snake for thinner runs. The documented story sits closer to home.

In 1910 and 1911, Grangeville Power & Light built a concrete arch dam on the South Fork Clearwater about five miles east of Grangeville, 56 feet high and 440 feet long. Fish and Game’s plan is blunt: Harpster Dam “blocked upstream migrations of all fish.”

Every ocean-going fish bound for Johns Creek hit that wall for half a century. Washington Water Power bought the dam in 1937. A wooden fish ladder collapsed in 1949.

On August 19, 1963, after two failed shots earlier that day, a crew dynamited the dam at 6:35 in the evening. It was the largest dam ever removed in the country at the time, and the river has run free since.

Steelhead came back through reintroduction from Dworshak Hatchery stock. Spring Chinook, wiped out across the Clearwater basin by Lewiston Dam between 1927 and 1973, were rebuilt from out-of-basin stocks.

Coho, native to the lower Clearwater, now return in fishable numbers thanks to the Nez Perce Tribe’s hatchery program. In 1999 Avista paid the tribe a $39 million settlement for fish losses from the Grangeville and Lewiston dams.

The river still carries scars. The state’s fisheries plan singles out the South Fork Clearwater drainage as a watershed hurt by past dredge and placer mining, roads, logging, and grazing along the streams. Recreational dredge mining is still common there.

The plan also expects a warmer basin, with more rain and less snow, to bring earlier, flashier runoff and lower summer flows.

Flows and Summer Heat

No gauge has ever run on Johns Creek. The USGS site named “Johns Creek near Grangeville” is a different creek west of town, so do not use it. For timing, use the two South Fork gauges that bracket the mouth: Elk City upstream and Stites downstream.

Source: USGS gauges 13337500 (261 square miles, 1944 to 2021 means) and 13338500 (1,168 square miles, 64 years of record).

The shape is the same at both ends. Runoff peaks in May, stays high through June, and settles by the middle of July. The old advice to skip early June holds, and now it has numbers behind it. Johns Creek drains steep country between those two gauges, so expect it to follow the same curve.

Heat is the late-summer problem on the river, not the creek. At Stites the average daily high water temperature is 69 degrees in both July and August, down to 61 in September. That is stressful for trout and steelhead. On hot afternoons fish the shaded creek and leave the main river alone until the water cools in the fall.

Getting There

Johns Creek has been on the Forest Service’s Wild and Scenic eligibility lists since the 1987 forest plan. In the 2025 plan revision it was one of 88 eligible streams, and three of the draft alternatives would have called it suitable.

The final preferred alternative found only 11 rivers suitable, and Johns Creek was not among them. The same document lists it among the South Fork tributaries covered by the state’s Protected Rivers direction.

How to Fish It

Johns Creek is small, steep, and shaded, with a two-trout limit and a mix of fish that deserve a light touch. A 3- or 4-weight rod, a dry-dropper rig, and a pocket of attractor dries in sizes 12 to 16 will cover it from July into October. Our dry fly tips cover the presentation side.

Know what you are holding. A cutthroat or a small rainbow can go in the two-fish limit on the creek. A bull trout goes back, always. A rainbow over 20 inches is a steelhead by definition and goes back.

Small fish with dark oval parr marks along the side are likely young steelhead or salmon. Keep them in the water and slip the hook.

At the mouth the rules flip. On the South Fork every cutthroat goes back, and if you switch to steelhead or salmon you need a single-pointed barbless hook and an open season. The steelhead harvest windows are short, and spring Chinook runs on an annual proclamation.

Wade with care. Chinook spawn in this drainage in late summer and steelhead in spring, and Fish and Game manages the creek for their natural production. Stay off clean gravel in those months and skip anything that looks like a redd.

Two other North Idaho waters go with this one. The Pack River drains the Selkirks into Lake Pend Oreille, and Cayuse Creek is the Kelly Creek tributary in the North Fork Clearwater country.

Frequently Asked Questions

Where is Johns Creek in Idaho?

Johns Creek runs 19.6 miles into the South Fork Clearwater River in Idaho County, in north-central Idaho. It flows north and enters the river from the south side along Highway 14, about 21 road miles east of Grangeville. A Forest Service sign and a footbridge over the South Fork mark the Johns Creek Trailhead at the mouth.

What are the fishing rules on Johns Creek?

No special rules are listed, so Clearwater Region general rules apply: open all year, two trout a day, brook trout limit 25, bull trout release. A rainbow over 20 inches is a steelhead and goes back, and the creek has no salmon season. The South Fork at the mouth requires cutthroat release and single-pointed barbless hooks for steelhead and salmon.

When is the best time to fish Johns Creek?

Mid-July through October. There is no gauge on the creek, but the South Fork gauges above and below it peak in May, stay high in June, and settle by mid-July. The river averages 69 degrees on July and August afternoons at Stites, so the shaded creek fishes better than the main river in late summer.

What fish live in Johns Creek?

Everything in it is wild, since Fish and Game has no stocking record for the creek. Surveys from 2013 to 2024 found westslope cutthroat, rainbow trout, bull trout, brook trout, mountain whitefish, and young steelhead, Chinook, and coho salmon. The state manages the creek for natural steelhead and Chinook production and for a modest cutthroat and rainbow harvest.

Sources and Check Dates

• Idaho Department of Fish and Game, Fishing Seasons and Rules 2025–2027, second edition 2026: Clearwater Region pages 18–22, including the general rules and the South Fork Clearwater special rule, and the steelhead, coho, and fall Chinook tables on pages 52–54. Checked September 2026.
• IDFG Fishing Planner, Johns Creek: length, county, species surveys 2013–2024, stocking records, and rules block; IDFG hydrography layer for the creek’s course and mouth. Checked September 2026.
• IDFG, Fisheries Management Plan 2025–2030: South Fork Clearwater drainage table and the Clearwater narrative on Harpster and Lewiston dams, coho, dredge mining, and climate. Checked September 2026.
• IDFG steelhead and Chinook season pages for the South Fork Clearwater River, 2026. Checked September 2026.
• USGS gauge 13338500, South Fork Clearwater River at Stites: monthly means and 1998–2008 water temperatures; USGS gauge 13337500, South Fork Clearwater River near Elk City: monthly means 1944–2021. Checked September 2026.
• USDA Forest Service, Nez Perce-Clearwater National Forests: Johns Creek Trailhead, Castle Creek Campground, South Fork Campground, Meadow Creek Campground, and Highway 14 corridor pages. Checked September 2026.
• USDA Forest Service, Executive Summary, Final Environmental Impact Statement for the Nez Perce-Clearwater Land Management Plan, January 2025: wild and scenic eligible and suitable rivers by alternative. Checked September 2026.
• Wikipedia, South Fork Clearwater River and Grangeville Dam, for the dam’s dimensions, ownership, and 1963 removal, and for the river’s course; OpenStreetMap for trailhead, trail, and campground positions. Checked September 2026.