Lower Klamath Creel Counts:

Fall Chinook, below 101 Bridge – Harvested – 91; total 637; above 101 Bridge – 257; total 2,251, Released – 119. Steelhead: Released below 101 Bridge – 5 total 160; above 101 Bridge – 61 total 1,258. NO Oct count.
Trinity River Hatchery:Sept, 30; 804 Spring Chinook sub- total 2,029; 1 Coho; 4 Steelhead. NO Oct. count.
Junction City Weir: 35 – total 223 Chinook; 3 Coho; 8- Steelhead, total 21; 47- German Brown under 16in, 97- German Brown- total 144.

Willow Creek Weir:Oct. 7 - 165 Chinook, total 825; 266 Coho, total 627; 69 Steelhead – total 378; 0 Brown Trout

The weir counts for Coho has taken a big jump in the last two weeks,  600 has been counted and when you consider that only 5 to 10% of the fish are counted at the W.C. weir there has to be a lot of Coho heading up the river.

Fishing:

Once again a large number of Coho salmon was counted at the weir. Fishing has been good in the early mornings or late afternoons with a slow period from about 11 O’clock until about 3-3:30 in the afternoon. The afternoons are good if you can find some shady areas on the river. This past weekend I saw fish up until 10 o’clock then it was just the deep holes that had shade. My customers, Rick Bailey and Roger Schilowsky of Eureka, did good Sunday morning with a nice 12lb Chinook landed by Rick, but Roger lost a nice native Steelhead in the afternoon. We were fishing in Hoopa and most of the bank fishers we saw were fly fishing. Norman Bensky and a friend his were drifting along with us on Sunday fly fishing, they were doing well in the shaded areas and were able to catch and release several nice native and hatchery steelhead up to 8lbs. It seemed as though every large deep hole had salmon rolling in them but once the sun hit the water no one could get them to bite. Dave Graham of Suzie Q and a friend of his Jason Scoggins did well in the mornings below Dave’s house with Jason able to land a nice 8lb steelie. Up river it has been smolt that is the problem. Trying to drift bait is impossible because the smolt just attack with vigor and all one does is ‘feed the fish”. Some of the guides I talked with said they wee going to hold off for a week to try and let them move on down river.

Trinity River:

The flows are starting to drop as the feeder streams dry up but the water temperatures are holding in the low 50’s in the upper sections and in the mid to low 60’s on the lower river. On the lower section in Hoopa I have noticed that the moss is starting to break loose and one has to clean their gear almost every drift. A good rain will help to clear this problem up. 

    
Klamath River:

The Weitchpec reports said that there are plenty of fish all the way up to Orleans but they seem to have lock jaw. The morning bite is fair but that’s about it until cooler temperatures set in. For the few that have been lucky enough to get out in the early morning have had success in landing one or two fish but the game is over when the sun hits the river. Now that the mouth of the Klamath has broken open fresh fish are coming in on the high tides. These fish should start to show up in the next week or so at Weitchpec and then into the Trinity right after that.

River Flows and Conditions:

Trinity Lakeis 66ft below the over flow (4ft increase) and 62.8 percent of capacity (1% decrease) at 9:00am today.
Inflow to the lake is 201cf and 2,675cfs is being released to Lewiston Lake with 2,239cfs going to the Sacramento River. Trinity River at Lewiston releases are 436cfs, water temperatures 49.5 degrees, air 50. Limekiln Gulch is 4.7ft at 376cfs. Douglas City is 6.4ft at 494cfs, water temps are 51.4 degrees, air 49 degrees.
Helena/North Fork is 9.1ft at 510cfs, water temps 54, air 50. Cedar Flat is 3ft at 538cfs.
Willow Creek 605cfs, water at 60 air 58.Hoopa is 11.7ft at 789cfs, water 62.6.  Trinity at Klamath is 2,629cfs.
Klamath River releases at Iron Gate Dam are 1,030cfs. Seiad Valley is n/a at n/a cfs.
Happy Camp estimated at 1,200cfs. Somes Bar estimated at 1,640cfs. Orleans is 3.7ft at 1,840cfs.
Klamath at 101 is 8.6ft at 3,160cfs water temperatures at 63.8 degrees.
Temperatures in the valley last week were 78/45 degrees with 0 inches of rain, new water year. Next week in the valley predicted to be 79/39 degrees, with am clouds and pm sun with a cooler weather expected by Friday