Fry and smolts usually stay in freshwater from 1 to 18 months before travelling downstream to estuaries, where they remain up to 189 days. Chinook salmon spend 1 to 8 years at sea before returning to natal streams to spawn. Chinook salmon range in Idaho from their entry place on the Columbia River into the Snake River Basin. Including the Salmon Rivers, Lochsa, Clearwater rivers and their tributaries. The salmon is highly valued by commercial fishermen, despite their scarcity relative to other Pacific salmon along most of the Pacific coast.
Chinook salmon is also an important subsistence fish and a valuable recreational resource.
Chinooks introduced into lakes such as Coeur d'Alene and Anderson Ranch where they feed on their abundant cousin, the kokanee salmon. Kokanee are close relatives of sockeye salmon. They tend not to exceed a couple of pounds in most places. When the kokanee bite is on, the action can be hot, limits are usually generous and this fish is delicious. Most kokanee anglers concentrate on Anderson Ranch Reservoir east of Boise and Dworshak Reservoir in the north central part of Idaho.