hey fishnfool, Welcome to Pullman. I run a science lab on campus maybe we could hook-up also.
Well, don't get too worked up just yet but get ready. There is about 11,000 fish over the last of the snake river dams right now and the fishing won't be consistantly good until a few more make it up but it looks to be a good year so far.
If you need an immediate fish fix your best bets right now is the lower clearwater right in front of the potlatch mill (aka the Mill hole) and the upper parts of this is fishable with the bugrod. The other alternative is the snake river, either tossing jig and bobbers with bait shrimp or trolling from a boat. But it's still early so don't get too excited yet. Look for the Rhonde to heat up in October all the way through April as well as the Clearwater and the Salmon rivers in Idaho. The Rhonde is the primary river for the early season flyfishers as almost all of that river is good flyfishing water.
With the current state of the cougs football team it looks like you should have a few spare weekends this year!! (hint: the vollyball team is almost as much fun to watch, they play at non-fishing hours and they even win games!)

I probably won't get into the steelhead game until Late October when the venison is in the freezer.

Good luck,

Duke