Fly Fishing the Pack River, Idaho: Selkirk Mountain Trout

Selkirk Water Above Idaho’s Biggest Lake

The Pack River starts at Harrison Lake, high in the Selkirk Mountains at about 6,190 feet, and runs south to the north tip of Lake Pend Oreille at 2,050 feet. Idaho Fish and Game maps it at 50.7 miles through Bonner and Boundary counties. It is the second-largest stream feeding the lake, after the Clark Fork.

The lake at the bottom is the largest in Idaho and the fifth-deepest in the country, at 1,152 feet. That matters on the river. The Pack’s best fish are born in its tributaries, grow up in the lake, and come back.

The whole upper drainage sits in the Idaho Panhandle National Forests, managed from the Sandpoint Ranger District. The old Kaniksu National Forest name still shows up on maps, but it was folded into the Panhandle forests in 1973.

About 34 tributaries feed the Pack. Grouse Creek is the largest, then Rapid Lightning, Jeru, and Hellroaring creeks and the West Branch. The rock underneath is granite that weathers into fine sand, which explains most of this river’s problems and a good deal of its character. For more streams like it, see our Idaho secret waters guide.

Regulations (Checked September 2026)

The Pack River has its own line in Idaho’s 2025 to 2027 rule book. It covers everything above the railroad bridge at the mouth, plus Grouse Creek, Rapid Lightning Creek, and all their tributaries.

Three things trip people up. First, the cutthroat rule has no season. Every westslope cutthroat goes back, in July as much as in January.

Second, the winter and spring rule makes rainbows catch-and-release and bans bait for everyone. Fly anglers lose nothing by it.

Third, brook trout are not “trout” in Idaho’s definition, so the six-fish limit does not apply to them. You may keep 25, and the bull trout are better off when you do.

The 2025 rule book also added spearfishing for northern pike in the Pack River and its tributaries. Pike are an illegal introduction in this region and there is no limit on them. Check the current rule book before you go. The edition in force is the second printing, dated 2026.

The Fish: Wild for a Decade

Fish and Game last stocked the Pack River in November 2015, with 7,700 rainbow fingerlings. Before that the record is thin: 9,500 fingerlings in 2013, kokanee fry in 1982 and 1983, and a run of rainbow and cutthroat plants in the 1970s. Everything in the river today was born there or swam up from the lake.

The most interesting entries are the oldest. Between 1969 and 1974 the department planted bull trout fry in the Pack and Grouse Creek by the tens of thousands, more than 107,000 in July 1974 alone. Bull trout are now a federally threatened species that no agency stocks.

The best species list comes from Grouse Creek, where Fish and Game surveyed in 2010. The crew found westslope cutthroat, rainbow, brook trout, bull trout, mountain whitefish, and three kinds of hybrid: rainbow-cutthroat, and bull trout crossed with brook trout. They also found northern pikeminnow, longnose dace, redside shiners, and sculpin.

That bull-brook hybrid is the reason for the 25-fish brook trout limit. Brook trout spawn with bull trout and produce sterile crosses. Fewer brookies means more bull trout.

Kokanee run up from the lake too. Fish and Game stocked more than 900,000 kokanee fry in Grouse Creek between 2005 and 2013, and the lake’s kokanee draw as many as 300 bald eagles to the tributaries from late November through March.

Bull Trout: The Fish That Still Migrate

The Pack’s bull trout are lake-run fish. They hatch in the cold upper tributaries, drop down to Lake Pend Oreille, grow past 30 inches, and come back up in September and October to dig redds. Fish and Game and Avista count those redds every fall in 22 tributaries around the lake.

The Pack drainage is a real part of that count. In 2011 the department surveyed Caribou Creek, a Pack River tributary, for the first time and found more than 35 redds in one small stream. The basin-wide count that year was over 800 redds, which the department called average.

The 2015 federal recovery plan puts the Pack in the Lake Pend Oreille core area, which holds 19 local bull trout populations on the Idaho side of the lake.

It names the main threat plainly: legacy sediment from forest roads, logging, and fire, with Grouse Creek and the Pack River as examples. The plan lists the Pack, with Lightning Creek, as a priority watershed for replanting stream banks.

If you hook a fish with pale yellow and pink spots on an olive back and no black marks on the dorsal fin, that is a bull trout. Keep it in the water, back the hook out, and let it go. No photo is worth it.

Lake Trout and the $15 Head

The lake, not the river, decides how many big fish come home to the Pack. Fish and Game says Lake Pend Oreille’s kokanee nearly collapsed in the 2000s under predation, mostly from non-native lake trout. Lake trout eat kokanee, rainbows, and bull trout alike.

The department’s answer has been an aggressive predator program, and it says the kokanee have largely recovered.

Part of that program is the Lake Pend Oreille Angler Incentive Program. It pays $15 for every lake trout head dropped in a marked Fish and Game freezer, with a data slip, at sites from Bayview to Hope.

There is no bag limit on lake trout in the lake. The department reports anglers have earned roughly $1.5 million from lake trout since 2006.

Walleye get the same treatment, with $1,000 for each tagged head and monthly $100 drawings. None of this happens on the Pack itself, but every lake trout out of the lake is a little more room for the fish that spawn in the river.

Sand, Logging, and a River on the List

The Pack has been on Idaho’s impaired-waters list since 1998. The lower river, from Sand Creek to the lake, is listed for sediment. So are Grouse, Caribou, and Colburn creeks. The state’s 2001 cleanup plan calls for cutting the lower river’s sediment load by more than 45,000 tons a year.

Grouse Creek is the worst case. The plan estimates it moves about two and a half times the sediment it would naturally, because historic logging pushed the channel back and forth across its valley and cut into the banks. Forest roads do the rest. Farm and pasture land is only about 5 percent of the watershed.

Temperature is on the list too. A 2002 update flagged Gold, Grouse, Hellroaring, Jeru, and McCormick creeks for warm water. The upper Pack is not the ice-cold stream it is sometimes described as. It is a granite-sand river in a logged watershed that is being put back together.

The Pack River Watershed Council formed in 2001 and ran volunteer water monitoring on the main stem from 1999 to 2005. The federal bull trout plan and the state cleanup plan point the same direction: replant the banks, fix the roads, keep the sand out of the gravel.

One more correction to the old story of this valley. The Selkirks were once the last place in the lower 48 with woodland caribou.

That ended in April 2019, when the last South Selkirk caribou was moved to a pen in British Columbia and released into a Canadian herd. The herd had fallen from 46 animals in 2009 to one in 2018.

Bears are still here, and a seasonal food storage order covers the forest. Hang your food or use the bear box at Harrison Lake.

Flows: A July-to-October River

The USGS gauge on the Pack River near Colburn, downstream of most of the fishing, recorded 36 water years between 1958 and 2024. The pattern is snowmelt, and it is steep.

Source: USGS gauge 12392300, Pack River near Colburn, monthly means for 1958 to 1982 and 2014 to 2024.

May runs about 25 times August. The river is a torrent through May and most of June, fishable by early July, and low and clear from August through October.

Fall rains lift it again in November. The gauge stopped reporting in April 2025, so there is no live reading to link. Judge the season by the calendar and by the snowpack in the Selkirks.

The fishing window and the bull trout spawn overlap. From September on, look for patches of clean, bright gravel at the tails of pools in the tributaries, and walk around them.

Getting There: Forest Road 231

Pack River Road, Forest Road 231, is the only way up the river. From Sandpoint take U.S. 95 north about 13 miles and turn left onto Road 231. The Forest Service directions run 20 miles from that turn to the Harrison Lake trailhead at the top, and the road follows the river the whole way.

The December 2025 floods matter. A slide off the Jeru Creek Road washed onto Road 231 and closed it until crews cleared it in March 2026. The Forest Service alert list still shows Road 293 closed and Lightning Creek Road 419 closed as well. Call the Sandpoint Ranger District at (208) 263-5111 before you count on any side road.

There is no developed Forest Service campground on the Pack. People camp at pullouts along Road 231 and at the lake above the trailhead. The forest’s food storage order applies everywhere.

The lower river is a different place. Below the Highway 200 bridge the Pack spreads into a delta that Fish and Game finished rebuilding in June 2024, at a cost of $3.5 million, with new islands, eight in the plan, planted in willow and dogwood.

The new ramp on U.S. 200 replaced a row of roadside pullouts. Motors are banned above the bridge, so a canoe or kayak is the way to fish the delta and the flat water below the railroad.

How to Fish It

This is a wading river from July on. A 3- to 5-weight rod and a floating line cover it. Westslope cutthroat in the upper river and the tributaries rise to a buoyant dry, and a small beadhead under it picks up the whitefish and the fish that will not come up.

From August, ants and hoppers along the alder banks do most of the work.

Every cutthroat goes back, so pinch your barbs even though the rule does not require it. Keep the brook trout. A pale-spotted char with a plain dorsal fin is a bull trout and goes back in the water without leaving it.

The lower river fishes like a different stream. In summer, when the lake is at full pool, the sloughs and delta channels hold rainbows and cutthroat along with bass and perch. Fish and Game says fishing there is best at high water.

Two other quiet panhandle streams pair well with a Pack River trip: Johns Creek and Cayuse Creek. For another wild-fish stream with bull trout, in the middle of the state, see Bear Valley Creek.

Frequently Asked Questions

Where is the Pack River in Idaho?

The Pack River runs through Bonner and Boundary counties north of Sandpoint. It starts at Harrison Lake in the Selkirk Mountains at about 6,190 feet and flows roughly 50 miles, by Idaho Fish and Game’s measure, to the north tip of Lake Pend Oreille at 2,050 feet. Pack River Road, Forest Road 231, leaves U.S. 95 about 13 miles north of Sandpoint and follows the river 20 miles to the Harrison Lake trailhead.

Can you keep fish from the Pack River?

The trout limit is six, but no cutthroat may be kept anywhere on the Pack River or its tributaries. From December 1 through the Friday before Memorial Day weekend, rainbow trout are catch-and-release and bait is banned. Bull trout are catch-and-release all year. Brook trout have a separate limit of 25. Grouse Creek is closed to fishing for 100 yards above and below Grouse Creek Falls.

When is the best time to fish the Pack River?

July through October. The USGS gauge near Colburn averaged 1,157 cubic feet per second in May and 46 in August over 36 years of record. Snowmelt makes the river unfishable in May and most of June, and it drops to wading size in July. Bull trout spawn in September and October, so watch for redds and step around them.

Are there bull trout in the Pack River?

Yes, and they still migrate. Bull trout hatch in the upper river and its tributaries, grow past 30 inches in Lake Pend Oreille, and return to spawn each fall. Fish and Game surveys in Grouse Creek in 2010 found bull trout and bull-brook hybrids, and the first redd count on Caribou Creek in 2011 found more than 35 redds. Bull trout are federally threatened and catch-and-release in Idaho, so unhook them in the water.

Sources and Check Dates

• Idaho Fish and Game, 2025–2027 Seasons and Rules, second edition (2026), Panhandle Region: general limits, trout definition, brook trout and bull trout rules, the Pack River and tributaries special rule, and the spearfishing addition. Checked 10 September 2026.
• Idaho Fish and Game, Fishing Planner: Pack River (length, counties, stocking records) and Grouse Creek (2010 survey species, stocking records); Hawkins Point access site. Checked 10 September 2026.
• Idaho Fish and Game, Panhandle Fisheries Report 2011: bull trout redd counts, Caribou Creek survey.
• Idaho Fish and Game, “F&G tracks bull trout populations by counting the spots where they spawn” (September 2022): survey timing and trends.
• Idaho Fish and Game, Lake Pend Oreille Fisheries page and Lake Pend Oreille Angler Incentive Program page: kokanee history, predator program, $15 lake trout reward, walleye rewards, freezer sites. Checked 10 September 2026.
• Idaho Fish and Game, “Restoring the Pack River Delta for people and wildlife” (July 2024) and “Pack River Delta habitat restoration project beginning November in North Idaho” (November 2023); Pend Oreille Wildlife Management Area page.
• The Spokesman-Review, “Islands in the delta” (9 August 2024): project cost, funding history, new ramp.
• US Fish and Wildlife Service, Columbia Headwaters Recovery Unit Implementation Plan for Bull Trout (September 2015): Lake Pend Oreille core area, local populations, threats, priority watersheds.
• Idaho Soil and Water Conservation District, Pack River TMDL Implementation Plan for Agriculture (2007), summarizing the Idaho DEQ Clark Fork/Pend Oreille Subbasin Assessment and TMDLs (1999–2001): listed segments, load reductions, land use, watershed council monitoring.
• Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, Periodic Status Review for the Woodland Caribou (2023); US Fish and Wildlife Service, “Saving the Gray Ghosts”: South Selkirk caribou extirpation.
• USDA Forest Service, Idaho Panhandle National Forests: Harrison Lake Trailhead 217 page (directions, facilities, updated February 2026) and forest alerts (Jeru Creek Road 293 closure order, food storage order). Checked 10 September 2026.
• The Spokesman-Review via Lewiston Tribune, “Forest road near Sandpoint reopens after flood damage” (22 March 2026).
• USGS gauge 12392300, Pack River near Colburn, monthly mean discharge 1958–1982 and 2014–2024; site record end date. Checked 10 September 2026.
• Wikipedia: Pack River (source, mouth, basin, tributaries, geology, watershed council), Lake Pend Oreille, Idaho Panhandle National Forests, Albeni Falls Dam, Cabinet Gorge Dam.