The Willow Creek Weir has been removed and it looks like the peak of the salmon runs have made it through Willow Creek. The Winter Run Chinook salmon peaked out during Julian Week 40 – 41 at 713 & 217 while the Coho salmon peaked out during Julian Week 40 at 326. The steelhead are just now peaking out at Julian Week 45 at 237. These are fair numbers but not quite enough to make the Trinity River Hatchery egg quotas for this year. You must remember that this is just the preliminary counts and not official yet. It appears that the Hoopa weir captured and removed most of the returning hatchery marked steelhead at this time but like I said this is only the preliminary counts. It remains to see what the official TRH counts will be.
It is official that the four Klamath Dams will be removed now. FERC has finally NOT renewed the licenses for the dams. This means the dams can officially be removed. The last hurdle has been removed!
Lewiston Lake, Pine Creek Marina: Louise and Matt of the Pine Cove Marina and Park (530-778-3878) have gone out of town to be with family for the holidays so there is no report for this week.
Trinity River Hatchery summary: Julian Week 44 ending Nov. 4, 2022; Fall Run Chinook Salmon, 936-adult, 284-jacks, total 1,220, season total 1,791; Coho salmon, 4-jack, 51-adult, total 55, season total 59; 2-steelhead, season total 33.
Junction City weir summary: Julian week 45 ending Nov. 11; Chinook salmon, 5-jack, 17-adult, total 22, season total 3,163; Coho salmon, 4-jack, 58-adult, total 62, season total 149; steelhead, 23-adult, 1-1/2lbs, total 24, season total 208, Brown trout, 0, season total 22.
Willow Creek weir summary: Julian week 45 ending Nov. 11, 2022; Fall Run Chinook salmon, 16-jacks, 25-adults, total 41, season total 1,231; Coho salmon, 3-jacks, 26-adults, total 29, season total 836; steelhead, 3-1/2lbs, 234-adults, total 237, season total 484.
Fishing: The Fall Run salmon season seem to be slowing down towards the end but the steelhead run is heating up for a good winter run hopefully. It is the Thanksgiving Day week and I will be with family so it will be hard for me to get out on the river to check out fishing. I hope you will forgive me for not giving you a longer report but I think you can relate to being with family. It appears that the winter run steelhead are showing up and we could have some good fishing for the next couple of weeks in the Hoopa Willow Creek area. It also appears that we are in for some more rain next week and if the weather forecast is correct then more rain equals more steelhead fishing.
Mid-Klamath to Happy Camp: The Klamath River at Weitchpec is flowing 2,527cfs. This is a decrease of 230cfs. Iron Gate Dam is releasing 1,068cfs. Due to the Holiday week, I was unable to get fishing reports from the Klamath River area.
Lake Conditions: Whiskeytown is 90% of capacity (a decrease of 2%) with inflows of 31cfs and releasing 241cfs in to Spring Creek. Shasta Lake is 31% of capacity (a decrease of 0% minus 0ft) with inflows of 2,275cfs and releasing 2,728cfs into Keswick. Keswick is 87% (a decrease of 1%) with inflows of 3,217cfs and releasing 3,288cfs into the Sacramento River. Oroville Lake is 28% of capacity (a decrease of 1% minus 2ft) with inflows of 1,246cfs with releases of 3,663cfs into the Feather River. Folsom Lake is 27% of capacity (a decrease of 1% minus 2ft) with inflows of 517cfs with releases of 1,443cfs into the American river. Trinity Lake is at 531,029AF a decrease of 1,985AF. The Cold-Water pool was agreed to be 600,00AF, if this winter is dry as predicted Trinity Lake could be drawn down to just the river inflow as before the dam was built.
Trinity Lake: The lake is 180ft below the overflow (an increase of 0ft) and 22% of capacity (a decrease of 0%) with inflows of 142cfs and releasing 223cfs into Lewiston Lake with -83cfs being diverted to Whiskeytown and on to Keswick Power Plant, leaving 533,.014AF in lake storage (a decrease of 6,158AF), and releasing 3,708cfs into the Sacramento River.
Trinity River flows and conditions: Lewiston Dam is 97% of capacity (an increase of 0%) and water releases of 306cfs into the Trinity River, with water temperatures of 47.8 degrees, as of 1:00pm today Saturday November 19, 2022. Limekiln Gulch is 4.65ft at 303cfs. Douglas City is 6.26ft with flows of 313cfs with water temperatures of 43.4 degrees. Junction City is 1.70ft at 341cfs. Helena is 8.10ft at 374cfs with water temps of 44.7 degrees. Cedar Flat (Burnt Ranch) is 2.47ft at 453cfs. South Fork of the Trinity near Hyampom is 2.02ft at 117cfs. Willow Creek is estimated at 570cfs and air is 48 degrees and water at 44.9 degrees, Hoopa is 11.44ft at 698cfs with water at 45 degrees. Water flows at the mouth of the Trinity River at the Klamath in Weitchpec are estimated to be 2,527cfs a decrease of 230cfs.
Klamath River flows and conditions: Iron Gate is releasing 1,068cfs. Seiad Valley is 2.14ft at 1,195cfs. Indian Creek is 3.40ft at 88cfs. Happy Camp is estimated at 1,283cfs, Somes Bar is estimated to be 1,581fs, and the Salmon River is 1.63ft at 248cfs. Orleans is 2.41ft at 1,829cfs, the Klamath River at Terwer Creek is 8.57ft at 3,230cfs and water temps are 45.8 degrees. Flows for the Smith River at Jed Smith are 5.15ft with flows of 513cfs. and flows at Dr. Fine Bridge are 12.06ft at N/A cfs.
Temperatures for the Valley last week had a high of 53 and a low of 31 degrees. Rain for the week was 0.00in with a water year total to date of 7.85 inches and 0.00in of snow in Willow Creek. The predicted temperatures for next week are for high of 73 and lows of 40. We have been experiencing some nice weather this week with cold mornings and fair days in the 50s. The predicted weekend weather to have some light rain. More rain could help the river and improve fishing.
