Lyle to Klickitat: the lower river
The Klickitat comes off the east side of Mount Adams and runs south to the Columbia at Lyle, about 11 miles upriver from Hood River. Highway 142 follows the lowest 18 miles from Lyle through the old mill town of Klickitat, and this is where nearly all road-bound anglers fish: a dozen or so classic runs, roadside pullouts, WDFW access sites like Turkey Hole and a handful of ramps for short floats. The USGS gauge near Pitt sits on this reach, so the number on this page is the lower canyon flow.
The bottom mile and a half is different water. Lyle Falls and the gorge above the mouth are a Class V canyon that has killed boaters, and WDFW closes the river from Fisher Hill Bridge up to 400 feet above the Lyle Falls fishway. The short stretch from the railroad bridge at the mouth up to Fisher Hill Bridge is managed as salmon water with its own season and a summer closure for steelhead, so read the rules for it separately.
The canyon: Leidl to the Little Klickitat
Above the town of Klickitat the road leaves the river. From Leidl Campground down to the Little Klickitat confluence at mile 18 is the canyon section, and it is boat water: ramps at Leidl and Stinson Flats, where most floats launch, and take-outs at Slide and Icehouse. Nothing in the canyon is hard rowing, and it holds mile after mile of swing water with no road access. This is also where the resident rainbows are most common.
Upper river and the Yakama boundary
The upper river runs from the Yakama Reservation fishing boundary down to Leidl, reached from the Glenwood side. It is a long shuttle, a tough float with less holding water than the canyon, and the reach around the Klickitat Salmon Hatchery is closed between the boundary markers above and below the hatchery. The river above the reservation boundary is inside the Yakama Nation and is not open to non-tribal anglers; respect the posted markers. Klickitat Wildlife Area lands along the river need a Discover Pass to park.
Summer steelhead
Steelhead start showing in June, but the Klickitat is glacial and a run of hot days will color it or blow it out through July and August. Visibility matters more than the gauge here: local guides call it fishable at roughly 10 inches of clarity and give up below 8. September through November, once the glacier stops melting and the water cools, is the season, and the river closes to steelhead on November 30. Skagit heads with sink tips and nymphing the buckets are the standard approaches; dry line swinging works once temperatures moderate in the fall.
The run is a mix of wild fish and hatchery fish from a Skamania-stock program released in the Klickitat, so this is not a hatchery-free river. Wild steelhead must be released; only adipose-clipped hatchery fish may be kept. Fall chinook and coho run at the same time and draw a crowd to the lowest miles in September and October.
Rainbow trout and whitefish
The Klickitat holds a modest population of resident rainbows, mostly in the canyon, with mountain whitefish throughout. Local shops are honest that it is not a destination trout river; the Yakima is the trout water in this part of the state. Golden stones, caddis, PMDs and October caddis give the rainbows something to look up for, and a trout rod is worth carrying on a float. Cutthroat are not part of the Klickitat fishery; the trout water here is rainbow water.
Season and regulations
No local shop publishes a cfs range for the Pitt gauge because clarity, not volume, decides whether the Klickitat fishes. The 600 to 1,000 cfs range this page compares against brackets the USGS long-term monthly medians for August through November at gauge 14113000 (roughly 730 to 870 cfs), the months the river is in shape. Above about 1,000 cfs in summer usually means glacial melt and poor visibility; spring runoff runs two to three times higher and is not fishable.
From 400 feet above the Lyle Falls fishway up to the Yakama Reservation boundary the river opens the Saturday before Memorial Day and closes November 30 for game fish, with a two trout limit (14 inch minimum) and up to 3 hatchery steelhead (20 inch minimum) per day; whitefish only, with whitefish gear, from December through February. Wild steelhead and wild chinook must be released. Salmon limits and the mouth-to-Fisher Hill section change by emergency rule, including a 2026 order that cut adult salmon limits and closed parts of the river. Check the current WDFW regulations and emergency rules before you go, and carry a Washington license plus a Discover Pass for WDFW sites.