As you all know I have been attending fisheries meetings in Sacramento and Water Flow meetings in Weaverville and because of that I have not been able to make many fishing reports for the Trinity River. On March 16^th I sent out a list of options from the PFMC for In-River salmon fishing. I hop all of you read them and checked them out thourghly because Apr. 1-6 the PFMC will make the final determination as to the Option of choice and then on Apr 11-12 the Cal Dept. Fish Commissioners will make the decision of what the Calf salmon fishing regulations and limits will be for Ocean Sport and In-River Sport fishing will be. I hope to be able to send out the best Options for us and request that you email of write the Fish Commission a recommendation from the public. Remember this is going to be for Fall Chinook and it will cover the Sacramento River and Klamath River Basin as well as the Ocean Sport Fishing in Calif. As it stand right now the Sacramento River will have a full Fall salmon fishing season as will the Ocean Commercial and Ocean Sport. I just hope that the NMFS & NOAA new modeling programs are right and that their predictions are very close to being accurate.
They are predicting that the Sac. will have an abundance of 819,400 Fall Chinook come back to the Bay area and that the Klamath River Basin will have an abundance of 283,000 plus Fall Chinook at the mouth.

Our next problem is that this is predicted to be a Dry Water Year for the Klamath Basin and we could have low warm water on the Lower Klamath River. If this is the case we would have the same scenario as 2002 when the Klamath had a fish die-off of 86,000 salmon. The good news is that the Secretary of Interior has stated that the 50KAF of water set aside for Humboldt County could be used upon request and the Humboldt Co. Supervisors have composed such a letter.
Trinity River Hatchery Counts:

The TRH has made their last counts of steelhead going into the hatchery and they look very good. . Fall totals for the 2011 season are; week of Mar.18; Steelhead 93, total 5,784, 2010 total 2,037. Fall Chinook – 15,722, 2011 total 22,302, 2010 totals 11,908. Coho salmon to date 4,784, 2010 total 4,431.

Fishing:

We have been having rain and snow for the last week or so and the Trinity and Klamath or blown out. As I drove down the Trinity last week the upper sections of the river looked fairly good but as I came down to Del Loma Big French Creek was sprouting almost pure mud and it just got worse from there until you got down to the South Fork When it turned into muddy soup. Hoopa was running over 12,000cfs. With the current weather conditions I don’t see it getting any better until these storms pass through.
Klamath: The Weitchpec/Orleans area was almost the same as the Trinity except the water was higher as I went to the Orleans Rod & Gun Club dinner Saturday evening. I think it will take a little longer for the Klamath to clean out so it looks like it will be a week or two before any kind of fishing in the basin will. 

Trinity River flows and conditions:

Trinity Lake is 31ft (1ft increase) below the over flow and at 79% of capacity (0.2% decrease) of capacity at 12:00pm to day. Inflow to the lake is 5,648cfs and dam releases are 1,052cfs to Lewiston Lake with 740cfs going to Whiskeytown Lake and the Sacramento River.
Trinity River: Lewiston Dam releases are 312cfs, water temps 46.8, air is 40 degrees. Limekiln Gulch is 5.2ft at 521cfs. Douglas City is 6.7ft at 819cfs, water temps 44, air is 40. Junction City is 00ft at 000cfs. Helena is 9.7ft at 677cfs and water at 44. Cedar Flat is 4.2ft at 1,030cfs. Willow Creek is estimated at 1,383cfs, air 44, and water 44. Hoopa is 20.3ft at 14.1Kcfs, water temps 44 degrees. Mouth of the Trinity at Klamath is 34.4Kcfs
Klamath: Iron Gate Dam releases are 1,400cfs. Seiad Valley is 5.4ft at 4,500cfs. Happy Camp estimated at 5,570cfs. Somes Bar estimated at 15.5Kcfs. Orleans is 11.4ft at 20.1Kcfs. Klamath at 101 is 20.2ft at 53.5K, water temps of 46.4 degrees.

Temperatures in the valley last week were 55/40 degrees with 4 inches of rain, total to date 48.6 inches counting the 3.5 inches while I was gone.  The weather next week expected to be 49/29, Mon – thru the weekend showers and rain with possible snow tonight and Thur next week.