Happy Easter
I hope everyone had a Happy Easter and a great day with the family.
The California fishing community is on hold right now waiting for the PFMC to make a decision about the Calif. salmon fishing season and what kind of salmon season we will have. In the case of “Over Fishing” the National Fisheries Management Council will probably have to make some kind of management plan for the recovery of the Klamath River Basin Fall Chinook salmon. This could possibly take several years unless they opt out and make the decision that the projected return is self recovering and will return to healthy natural spawning escapement. I really don’t understand just how NMFS makes their decisions just because of the Hoopa over harvest. NMFS is a Federal agency so they could determine just about anything when it comes to the fisheries. We all hope that there will be some type of Fall Chinook salmon fishing this year. What that will be is any ones guess. We will know soon!
Fishing: Steelhead fishing has come to an end on many of the North Coast Rivers but the Trinity is still open to the fishing of hatchery steelhead from the mouth of the South Fork up to Lewiston. Right now most of the rivers on their way down as are the Klamath and Trinity. The mouth of the Trinity has dropped 1,000cfs already. I don’t think the coming storms next week will change the river flows very much because there is not a lot of snow to melt at this time. The last snow report (mid March) was that the Trinity Alps (North Coast) was 48% of normal and the Sierras were 58 % of normal for this time of year. The upper Trinity is seeing more down runners right now so fly fishing should be good above the North Fork of the Trinity. Below that the river has picked up some volume because Willow Creek is flowing 3,438cfs.
Mid-Klamath: Iron Gate Dam is releasing 2,126cfs right now, so that would pretty much knock out the Klamath for any type of fishing in the near future. If you want to try for some trout fishing then I would keep an eye on the Iron Gate Releases to watch for the releases to drop down to 1,00cfs.
Lake Conditions: Whiskeytown is 86% of capacity (an increase of 1%) with inflows of 633cfs and releasing 237cfs into Clear Creek and on to Keswick. Shasta is 85% (an increase of 2% and 4ft) with inflows of 9,242cfs and releasing 2,346cfs, Keswick is 92% of capacity (an increase of 3%) with inflows of 2,602cfs and releasing 3,042cfs; Oroville Lake is 59% capacity (an increase of 9% & plus 12ft), inflow is 10,024cfs and releases are 2,178cfs; Folsom Lake is 84% of capacity plus 10% & plus 11ft.) inflows are 7,916cfs and releases are 9,629cfs.
Trinity Lake: The Lake is 46ft below the overflow (a decrease of 4ft) and 75% of capacity (1% decrease) Inflow to Trinity Lake is 1,764cfs and Trinity Dam is releasing 798cfs to Lewiston Lake with 493cfs going to Whiskeytown Lake and on to the Keswick Power Plant and it is releasing 3,042cfs to the Sacramento River.
Trinity River Flows and Conditions: Lewiston Dam releases are 355cfs with water temps of 51.8 and air is 77 degrees at 3:00pm today. Limekiln Gulch is 4.8ft at 372cfs, water temps of 51.8 degrees. Douglas City is 6.3ft at 436cfs, water temps of 53.6 degrees and air is 79. Junction City is 1.9ft at 495cfs. Helena is 9.5ft at 742cfs with water temps of 52.8. Cedar Flat is 4.9ft at 1,635cfs. Willow Creek is estimated at 3,438cfs and air is 75 with water at 52.3. Hoopa is 16.6ft at 6,423cfs with water temps of 51.8. Flows at the mouth of the Trinity River at Klamath River are estimated to be 16.6Kcfs.
Klamath: Iron Gate Dam releases are 2,126cfs. Seiad Valley is 4.6ft at 3,563cfs. Happy Camp is estimated at 4,234fs, Salmon River is 4.6ft at 2,697cfs, Somes Bar is estimated at 7,573cfs and Orleans is 7.8ft. at 10.9Kcfs and the Klamath River at Terwer Creek is 14.3ft at 21.6Kcfs, (1,000cfs decrease) with water temperatures of 50.8 degrees. Flows at Smith River, Dr. Fine Bridge are 9.7ft at 5,590cfs.
The low temperatures for Valley last week were 37/34 degrees and the high was 78 with 0.2in of rain with a season total of 53.3in of rain with 0in of snow in Willow Creek for a total of 4.15in of snow but still some snow in the mountains around us. Temperatures in the valley next week are expected to be 778/356 degrees with some clouds early in the week and then scattered showers starting Wednesday or Thursday and through the weekend.