US-12 pulloffs, Powell to Lowell
The Lochsa rises below Lolo Pass on the Montana line and runs about 70 miles west through the Nez Perce-Clearwater National Forest to Lowell, where it meets the Selway to form the Middle Fork of the Clearwater. US-12 follows nearly the whole river, and dozens of highway pullouts and Forest Service campgrounds put you on the water within a few steps of the truck. If the obvious pullout has three rigs in it, drive another mile; the river is rarely crowded even on August weekends.
The upper river around Powell and the Lochsa Lodge is close to creek size and clears first after runoff. The lodge's store is an Idaho Fish and Game license vendor and the only services between Lowell and Lolo Pass, so fuel up before you leave either end. There is no cell service in the canyon.
Wilderness Gateway and the lower canyon
Wilderness Gateway Campground, near milepost 122, is the regulation boundary on the river as well as a major access point. Downstream the Lochsa widens into a big, boulder-strewn river with deep plunges and current seams that hold the larger cutthroat, and the lower miles above Lowell are the biggest water on the river. The bed is bowling-ball rock and the drops are deceptively deep; wade with a staff and take each step deliberately.
Westslope cutthroat
Native westslope cutthroat are the whole show, and none of them are stocked; Fish and Game does not plant the river. They rise readily to attractor dries such as Stimulators, Chubby Chernobyls and Elk Hair Caddis, and a dry-dropper rig with a small nymph below a big foam fly covers the pocket water well. Trophies are uncommon here; the draw is numbers of wild fish in very clear water, which also means light tippet and careful presentations once flows drop in August.
Bull trout and steelhead
Bull trout live in the deepest pools and eat minnows, sculpins and small cutthroat. Targeting them is legal, but every bull trout must be released immediately; bring a 7 or 8 weight and a sculpin or Clouser if you want to swing for them late in the summer.
Steelhead do enter the Lochsa from the Clearwater, but this is not a steelhead fishery. Idaho's steelhead seasons on the Clearwater system end at Clear Creek on the Middle Fork, below Lowell, and the 2025-2027 rules list no Lochsa steelhead season. Fishing for steelhead is prohibited on any water without an open season, so anglers here are limited to trout. Fish and Game does open a summer Chinook season on the Lochsa from Lowell Bridge to Twin Bridges in some years; check the current salmon rules before you go.
Season and regulations
Runoff makes the Lochsa a torrent from April into early July, and it is a whitewater river, not a fishing river, until it clears. Flows at the Lowell gauge usually fall to wadeable levels in the second half of July, and August through October, when the river runs low and clear, is prime. In the USGS record the August to October flows at Lowell typically sit between about 350 and 750 cfs, and the river fishes well from the time it drops below roughly 1,000 cfs; that 350 to 1,000 cfs band is what this page compares the live gauge against. Good conditions often hold into November.
From the mouth up to the Wilderness Gateway Campground motor bridge, Idaho Fish and Game requires barbless hooks and no bait; trout are catch-and-release from December 1 through the Friday before Memorial Day weekend, then the limit is 2 trout, none under 14 inches, through November 30. From Wilderness Gateway upstream to the confluence of Colt Killed and Crooked Fork creeks, trout are catch-and-release year-round with barbless hooks and no bait. Bull trout must always be released. Confirm details in the current Idaho fishing seasons and rules before you fish.