Fly Fishing Jordan Creek, Idaho: Owyhee Country Redbands

A Gold-Rush Creek in the Owyhees

Jordan Creek rises in the Owyhee Mountains of southwest Idaho, just below the old silver camps around Silver City. It runs about 99 miles west into Oregon and joins the Owyhee River near Rome. The source sits at 7,551 feet and the mouth at 3,363.

The Idaho part lies in Owyhee County, and Fish and Game maps the creek at 98.6 miles. The creek is named for Michael M. Jordan, whose party found gold along it in 1863. That strike built Silver City and, for a while, one of the busiest towns in Idaho Territory.

Today the town is a ghost town of about 70 privately owned buildings on federal land, with a summer hotel and no gas station. The creek runs right through it. Fish and Game calls Jordan Creek a Recommended Fishing Water for native redband trout.

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

Regulations (Checked September 2026)

Jordan Creek is not named in Idaho’s 2025 to 2027 rule book. Fish and Game’s Fishing Planner page for the creek says “No Special Rules for Jordan Creek,” so Southwest Region general rules apply.

Redband trout count as rainbow trout, so the six-fish trout limit is the one that applies to them. The rule book in force is the second edition, dated 2026. The Southwest Region office in Nampa answers at (208) 465-8465.

The legal limit is six. Our advice is zero, for the reason in the mercury section.

The Fish: Native Redbands, Unstocked Since 1990

Redband trout are Idaho’s native resident rainbow. Fish and Game says every rainbow native to streams east of the Cascades is a redband, and in Idaho that means most stream trout below Shoshone Falls. They are the same species as steelhead. The ocean-run fish and the creek fish are one animal with two lives.

Fish and Game last stocked Jordan Creek on June 11, 1990, with 525 catchable rainbows. Before that came 24 plants between 1968 and 1990. Nothing has gone in for 36 years, and the department now stocks only sterile rainbows statewide to protect wild redband genes. Every trout in the creek today was born there.

The department’s 2020 survey found rainbow trout, dace, and suckers. Its 2019 survey added chiselmouth, northern pikeminnow, redside shiners, and speckled and longnose dace. Brook trout turned up in 2003, brown trout in 1996, and smallmouth bass in 2004.

The best size data comes from DEQ, which electrofished three upper Jordan Creek sites in 2005. Below Silver City it netted 27 redbands from 88 to 217 millimeters, or three and a half to eight and a half inches. Below Henrietta Gulch it found 12 fish up to 260 millimeters, just over 10 inches. Every site held two age classes.

That matches Fish and Game’s description of redbands in small streams. They mature at five or six inches, live three or four years, and grow slowly. Desert redbands are known to survive water up to 86 degrees, a temperature that kills most trout.

Mercury: Why You Release Everything Here

The mercury is a legacy of the Silver City era’s mining and milling, and the creek has carried it ever since. DEQ’s 2009 Jordan Creek assessment lists mercury as a pollutant of concern in the upper creek. Fish and Game flagged it in 1971, and DEQ, EPA, and the mine company’s own monitoring confirmed it through 2005.

The 2005 fish tissue numbers are plain. Fish from Jordan Creek sites averaged 0.56 milligrams of mercury per kilogram. Fish from nearby creeks outside the drainage averaged 0.13. The human health limit is 0.3. Young-of-the-year redbands carried 0.49 in Jordan Creek and 0.03 elsewhere.

DEQ wrote that the results supported a fish consumption advisory, and Idaho issued one. The Department of Health and Welfare lists an advisory for rainbow trout in Jordan Creek, and Fish and Game’s planner page carries the warning too. Oregon has its own advisories for lower Jordan Creek, Antelope Reservoir, and the Owyhee River.

The Bureau of Land Management goes a step further at its Silver City campground. Its page says not to use the water running through the campground from Jordan Creek, because it may contain mercury from the old mining.

So carry your own water, release every fish, and wash your hands before lunch. The fishing is still worth the drive. The eating is not.

Flows: A Spring Torrent, a Summer Trickle

Two USGS gauges have measured Jordan Creek, and neither runs today, so there is no live reading. The long record is at the Lone Tree Creek gauge near the state line, at 4,450 feet, with 29 water years between 1945 and 2004.

Source: USGS gauge 13178000, Jordan Creek above Lone Tree Creek, monthly means 1945–1971 and 2002–2004.

The record low at that gauge was 1.2 cubic feet per second in September 1962. The record high was 7,530 on the last day of 1965.

The upper creek is smaller still. A second gauge at the De Lamar mine, at 5,280 feet with a 35-square-mile drainage, ran from 1993 to 1996. It averaged 164 cubic feet per second in May, 6 in July, and under one from August through October.

Read that as a short season. The creek at Silver City is high and cold through May, clears in June, and fishes from about mid-June through July. By August it is a string of pools. DEQ notes that summer air here averages 80 to 85 degrees and can top 100.

Getting There and Camping

The Owyhee Field Office in Marsing manages the campground and the surrounding public land. It is at 101 South Bruneau Highway, (208) 896-5912, open weekdays 8:00 to 4:30.

Fish and Game’s own warning about the Owyhees applies to this road. Most routes are dirt or gravel, few are maintained year-round, and a rainstorm turns them to mud. Cell service is close to nonexistent. Tell someone your plan.

Mining Then and Now

Silver was found on War Eagle Mountain in 1863, and Silver City was founded the next year. It was the county seat from 1867 to 1934 and peaked in the 1880s at about 2,500 people. It had Idaho Territory’s first daily newspaper and telegraph office. The Silver City Historic District went on the National Register in 1972.

The De Lamar mine, about five miles downstream on the creek, reopened as an open-pit silver and gold operation in 1977 and shut down in 2000. DEQ described it in 2009 as no longer extracting ore and in the final phases of reclamation.

That may change. In May 2026 the BLM published a notice that it will prepare an environmental impact statement for the proposed DeLamar Mine Project in Owyhee County. Public scoping ran to June 29, 2026.

The BLM also moved to protect the town. In late 2023 it proposed withdrawing about 311 acres in and around the Silver City site from new mining claims, to keep the historic buildings and their visitors clear of new mining activity.

How to Fish It

This is a small mountain creek in a mining town, so fish it like one. Walk upstream from the campground and cover the pools, the runs under the willows, and the pockets behind rocks. A 2- to 4-weight rod and a floating line are all you need.

An attractor dry fly in size 14 to 18 will raise redbands from June on. Add a small nymph dropper when the water is still up in early June, and a beetle or ant once the grass dries out in July.

Stay low and cast from the bank. Redbands in shallow water bolt at a shadow, and the creek is narrow enough that one careless step empties a pool.

Handle fish wet and quick, and let them all go. Between the mercury advisory and a wild population with 10-inch fish at the top end, there is nothing to gain from a stringer.

For a longer trip through southern Idaho, pair this creek with the Little Lost River and the Snake River carp flats.

Frequently Asked Questions

Where is Jordan Creek in Idaho?

Jordan Creek starts in the Owyhee Mountains near the ghost town of Silver City and runs about 99 miles west into Oregon to join the Owyhee River near Rome. The Idaho reach is all in Owyhee County. Silver City sits at 6,179 feet, 25 miles of dirt road southwest of Murphy, about 70 miles from Boise.

What are the fishing rules on Jordan Creek?

Fish and Game lists no special rules for Jordan Creek, so Southwest Region general rules apply: open all year, six trout, brook trout limit 25, bull trout catch-and-release, no bait ban or barbless rule. Idaho also has a mercury fish consumption advisory for rainbow trout here, so we recommend releasing every fish.

Can you eat the trout from Jordan Creek?

Idaho’s health department lists a fish consumption advisory for rainbow trout in Jordan Creek because of mercury from historic mining. DEQ’s 2005 sampling found fish here averaged 0.56 milligrams of mercury per kilogram, almost twice the human health limit. Check the current meal limits on the health department’s fish advisory page before keeping any, or simply release them.

When is the best time to fish Jordan Creek?

Mid-June through July. The USGS gauge near the state line averaged 736 cubic feet per second in April, 585 in May, 26 in July, and 5 in August. The upper creek at the De Lamar mine ran under one cubic foot per second August to October. Fish it as soon as runoff clears, and go early once the heat arrives.

Sources and Check Dates

• Idaho Fish and Game, 2025–2027 Seasons and Rules, second edition (2026), Southwest Region general rules and regional office listing. Checked 10 September 2026.
• Idaho Fish and Game, Fishing Planner: Jordan Creek (length, county, Recommended Fishing Water status, species observed in surveys, stocking records, rules block, fish consumption advisory notice). Checked 10 September 2026.
• Idaho Fish and Game, “Redband: Idaho’s Most Widely Distributed Native Trout” (Kevin Meyer, July 2009) and “Wildlife Express: Redband trout are Idaho’s native resident rainbow” (May 2020): redband range, biology, temperature tolerance, sterile stocking. Checked 11 September 2026.
• Idaho Fish and Game, “Owyhee Desert is a paradise for adventurous sportsmen” (October 2016): road, service, and cell coverage warnings. Checked 11 September 2026.
• Idaho Department of Environmental Quality, Jordan Creek Subbasin Assessment and Total Maximum Daily Load, Final, December 2009: watershed description, climate, fisheries, 2005 electrofishing tables, mercury history and fish tissue results, De Lamar mine status. Checked 11 September 2026.
• Idaho Department of Health and Welfare, Fish Advisories page and Fish Consumption Advisory map layer: Jordan Creek advisory for rainbow trout (guide dated August 2021). Checked 11 September 2026.
• USGS gauges 13178000 (Jordan Creek above Lone Tree Creek) and 13177985 (Jordan Creek at De Lamar mine): site elevations, drainage areas, monthly mean discharge, periods of record. Checked 11 September 2026.
• Bureau of Land Management: Silver City Campground page (directions, no fee, water and mercury note), Owyhee Field Office page (address, phone, hours), and the 2023 press release on the proposed Silver City withdrawal. Checked 11 September 2026.
• Federal Register, “Notice of Intent To Prepare an Environmental Impact Statement for the Proposed DeLamar Mine Project—Owyhee County, Idaho,” May 29, 2026. Checked 11 September 2026.
• Historic Silver City Idaho (historicsilvercityidaho.com): road closure dates, Idaho Hotel contact and history, De Lamar mine dates. Checked 11 September 2026.
• Wikipedia: Jordan Creek (Owyhee River tributary), Silver City (Idaho), Owyhee Mountains, Owyhee County (Idaho).