The Trinity River Fall Run Chinook salmon are now starting to trickle in, but very slowly! The Lower Klamath has only harvested 2,241 Fall Chinook salmon as of September 9th. We should have seen about twice that number move through the system by now as we are looking at the third week of September already….
The Trinity River Willow Creek Weir is supposed to be starting installation Monday Sept. 8th. The river is in summer flow now so we will see what happens. I plan to check both the Willow Creek installation on Monday. I also plan to see when the Hoopa Weir is going to be installed. With the…
The Trinity River Fall Chinook salmon fishing season opened Sunday September 1st. You are allowed two salmon per day with one adult over 22 inches, Six salmon in possession with no more that three adults. Right now, the weather is cooling down a bit from the three-digit temperatures we have been having and some Fall…
The Trinity River Weirs; the Junction City weir is working as usual and should be removed sometime around Sept 1st, but the Willow Creek weir will not be installed until sometime after Sept. 8th because of high water flows. The Hoopa weir will not be installed until after the Tribal Ceremonial “Boat Dance” which will be…
The Tribal Ceremonies are now being done on the Mid-Klamath which will cause some river access closures. Please respect these areas for the short time access will be restricted; Aug. 11th to Aug. 20th near Orleans to Camp Creek; Aug. 26th to Sept. 4th near Somes Bar. Hoopa Weir; I hope to attend the next meeting in Hoopa to the meeting about…
The River Restoration project above Junction City is still providing lots of turbidity for that area of the river and makes for bad fishing. Will it do to or for any in-river spawning? Years ago, before the Dam the mining turned the river into a “river of mud” but the salmon had plenty of clean up-stream…
TRRP: The Trinity River Restoration Program is working on restoration project. I have been receiving reports of the river being dirty from just below the Round House down to below Junction City area of the river. From what I could find out was that the TRRP is working in that area. The problem is the work is…
Sorry not to make a report last week but I was down south in Fresno to meet with some old cronies I used to work with.The Trinity River summer flows are almost here. The summer flows are supposed to be reached by August 6th. This should be a sign at the mouth of the Klamath…
As the Trinity drops the salmon are starting to move into the river. The upper river is seeing more bright fish and Greys Falls is seeing more salmon holding. I have heard that the Falls is starting to get loaded with fishermen and sometimes one has to wait for a spot to fish. Water flows…
The New Emergency Spring Salmon Fishing Regulations for the Klamath River Basin have been released to the public! It is official, I got the word Thursday from CDFW about noon, the new salmon regulations have finally been released and are posted on the Fish and Game website with a public announcement release. The Spring Chinook Salmon…
At the April Fish & Game Commission meeting in Sacramento, the commissioners accepted a petition for listing the Spring Chinook salmon as a threatened species, thus causing an Emergency Regulation for Spring Chinook Salmon. (1) NO fishing for Spring Chinook Salmon in the Klamath River Basin. This was printed in the Supplemental Regulation book for fishing for…
At the April Fish & Game Commission meeting in Sacramento, the commissioners accepted a petition for listing the Spring Chinook salmon as a threatened species from the Tribes and notified the public that the spring salmon fishery was closed to the take of any salmon. That meant NO FISHING FOR SALMON! Later the commission, with the recommendation from…
The snow reports are in and final. The Trinity Alps are 128% of normal and the Sierras are 130% of normal for this time of year. This indicates a very good water year for the Eastern Sierras as well as the Klamath – Trinity River Basin. 10 of the 12 State Reservoirs are over 100%…
Now that the Trinity River water releases are back on schedule, we saw high water flows in the Willow Creek area of Big Rock and Kimtu Beach. (5,475cfs) This was not the best water flows for a Memorial Day Weekend but with the light showers we didn’t see a large turnout on the river. Instead…
Trinity River water releases were supposed to be 1,050cfs but due to the problems at the Lewiston water gate, which is still under repair, the true releases are 2,524cfs as of Sunday May 12th. Reclamation hopes to have the repairs done by this week so that they can synchronize back into the TMC recommended…
For the next week or so it looks like we will be getting some light rains or scattered showers. It doesn’t look like enough rain to make the rivers rise much. In fact, the Klamath Trinity River Basin is on the down side. Yes, the Klamath Trinity rivers are dropping, the Trinity not as much…
Finally the Feds have allowed the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife to euthanize the sea lions, (Protected by the Federal Marine Mammal Act) on the Columba and Willamette Rivers to stop the slaughter of the salmon and steelhead runs. The Willamette Wild Steelhead Runes have improved after Sea Lions were allowed to be euthanized…
A dangerous condition has occurred on the Trinity River just below Hawkins Bar. Around the bend from the Hawkins Bar access the river cable that marks the river for aircraft, with the phone cable, has come down and is in the river just below the surface. It is identifiable by the two large orange balls…
The rains and scattered showers have kept the Lower Trinity in a state of high and milky water. The upper sections of the river are in good shape for fishing. Most of the native fish have spawned out and started their migration down river. Most of the creeks in the upper river are running at…
I hope everyone had a safe and Happy Saint Patrick’s Day. The PFMC (Pacific Fisheries Management Council), posted their preliminary estimate for fall run Chinook salmon for the west coast from their March 6th -12th meeting and posted three options for the Klamath River salmon quotas. The PFMC estimates that there is an estimate of 5,230 to…
Finally, we are seeing some of the rivers dropping to fishable conditions. As I write this column, I am watching the Trinity drop in front of my house. (I watch the river bar) This is good news! The mark we have to watch for is when the river levels at Douglas City drops below 1,000cfs…
We are finally seeing a break in the weather for the Trinity Valley. That is good news, because of all the flooding along the North Coast, The Eel, Van Duzan and Mad Rivers saw flooding while the Trinity and Klamath came close to it. The river bar in front of my house was at least…
At the Feb. 6th California Fish and Game Commission meeting, the Karuk Tribe and the Salmon River Restoration Council submitted a petition to the Commission suggesting that declining population trends and a low abundance of the Spring Run Chinook salmon makes vulnerable to extinction. Once a petition for listing a species is presented and accepted…
The trouble is that the official Groundhog is frozen back east so he can’t come out! MEETINGS: California Fish & Game Commission: Feb.6 CFDC meeting to be held at the Resources Building Auditorium, 1416 Ninth St, Sacramento at 08:30. Topics of concern will be the listing of Northern California Summer Steelhead listing and upper Klamath-Trinity…
For the past week it has been good weather and the rivers have been dropping at a fairly steady rate. The Trinity has been looking good for the last couple of days and the river below South Fork has started to clear up. According to the latest weather report we can expect some more rain…
More rain and then some sunshine sounds great. This makes for more water storage, just what we need. One little thing, Governor Newson plans to try and add another 300,000 homes to California to try to help solve the housing shortage. Now add to that the 60,000 or more homes lost to the fires we…
Thank you for being patient as I am still learning to use windows 10 and having some difficulties. This year’s Federal California water projects could possibly take a hit to help pay for Trump’s Border Wall. This funding would come from Army Corps of Engineering projects that have been funded by Congress but not yet…
I hope everyone had a good and safe New Year’s weekend. I have to apologize to all my readers for not having a Fishing Report for the last several weeks. My computer crashed. I had to try and recover my data then buy a new compute and transfer the data into the new computer. Not…
I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving and was able to enjoy family together. We had a good rain last week. This last storm brought the Klamath Valley 3 to 5 inches of rain depending upon where you were. The good part is that it was enough rain to help the firefighters get control of…
Who did it? The different Guide Associations and Guides have been trying to get the U.S. Forest Service and the Lower Trinity Ranger district to fix the South Fork Sandy Bar Road for at least 10 years. Last week I had been asked, “Who graded the Sandy Bar Road and I could not answer the…