The Trinity River Spring Flows are in process and flows are increasing to 2,000cfs April 22 thru Apr. 30 and then increase to 4,500cfs for May 2-3. On May 4^th the river flows will slowly decrease to 2,000cfs by May 21-24 and on down to 450cfs by June 24^th. Not to scare people away from the river over the coming Holidays (Memorial Day weekend) but one should make sure to take extra precautions while around the river as water flows will be higher than normal.  For a complete flow scheduling go to www.trrp.net and go to the water flow page.

Form all indications it looks like the Klamath-Trinity River Basin will have a good year for Fall Chinook salmon season

One thing for sure you had better make your reservations early this year as there is going to be plenty of fishermen trying to book a fishing guide and a place to stay. When you divide 40,006 Fall Chinook up for the In-River Sports Fishing it appears that there will be plenty of salmon to go around. There could be a problem if we have some real hot weather in mid to late summer and there are low water flows like we had in 2002. Remember that was the year that the Klamath had a large die-off of salmon due to the large return and low warm water in the Lower Klamath. Since then there has been some major changes for water releases to try and prevent this from happening again. At the present time the Department of Interior is making arrangements to reserve extra Trinity River water in Trinity Lake, to help provide cooler water to be released when certain key elements are reached on the Lower Klamath.

Something I would like to bring up is the crossing of “Private Property”. Here lately I have talked to some local property owners and they have complained about the disrespect of fishermen crossing their property. This hurts us all. As fishermen we have the right to follow the river as long as we stay below the “mean high water line”. We DO NOT have the right to cross private property without the owners’ permission and by all means we should be respectful of the property and the owner. Yes we have been slowly lousing more and more river access to the rivers as new people buy up property and fence it off but it does not help our cause if we as fishermen continue to be disrespectful to property owners’. This same type of action is what has caused us to lose river access on the Hoopa Reservation!  

Fishing:

Be sure to read my special notice about USFS Road Closures, as I have received many calls about this and I am responding to the problem. Fishing has slowed down some because of the increase of water flows. Just before the flows went up there was a report of some early Springer’s being caught but I have not heard much since the higher flows.

The Mid-Klamath:  Weitchpec / Orleans area is still blown out from the high water flows.
Trinity River Flows and conditions: Trinity Lake is 19.2ft. (0.1ft increase) below the overflow and 87.6% of capacity (0.2% increase) at 10:00AM today.
Inflow to the lake was 2,173cfs and dam releases are 4,977cfs to Lewiston Lake with 3.077cfs going to Whiskeytown Lake and then on to the Sacramento River at Keswick.    
Trinity River: Lewiston Dam releases are 1,900cfs water temps 49, air is 63 degrees. Limekiln Gulch is 6.6ft at 2,110cfs. Indian Creek Lodge estimated at 2,128cfs. Douglas City is 8.1ft at 2,030cfs, water temps 51.2 air is 62, Junction City is 3.9ft at 2,130cfs.  Helena is 12.5ft at 2,490cfs with water at 53.2. Cedar Flat is 6.9ft at 2,910cfs. Willow Creek is estimated at 3,415cfs, air 60, and water 54. Hoopa is 15.2ft at 4,050cfs, water temps 56.6 degrees. Mouth of the Trinity at the Klamath is 10.8K cfs.

 Klamath: Iron Gate Dam releases are 1,150cfs. Seiad Valley is 3.7ft at 2,550cfs. Happy Camp estimated at 2,945cfs. Somes Bar estimated at 4,720cfs. Orleans is 6.6ft at 6,570cfs. Klamath at 101 is 12.2ft at 12.2K cfs & water temps of 55.8 degrees. Smith River is 7.9.ft at 1,860cfs.

Temperatures in the Valley last week were 78/38 degrees with 0 inches of rain, total to date 53.2 inches. The Weather in the valley next week is expected to be 77/45 degrees. Mon-Fri, sunny; Sat, partly cloudy; Sun, mostly sunny; Mon, sunny.