Pacific Fisheries Management Council Meeting, Sacramento
PFMC meetings were from Mar 7 to 11 for the purpose of setting three options for the west coast salmon season for public comment. After much discussion and hard work options were formed for all of the areas of concern. The ocean commercial salmon fleet did not far well but ocean sport ended up with three options that will allow for a salmon fishing season along the west coast this year. I will be sending out a break down of what the results were in the next few days in a special bulletin. The in-river sport fishing options were also presented for public comment. For Calif. the Fish and Game Commission will be reviewing and presenting options for salmon fishing at their April 7 – 8th Monterey meeting. As you can see I was not available to write a fishing report last week because I took part in the above discussions and plan to attend the FGC meeting in Monterey to present an option for the In-River Sportsmen.
Trinity River Hatchery Steelhead count for Mar. 11; 53, total of 4,251 for ‘09 vs. 2,495 for ’08. The TRH is through counting Steelhead for this season. The Trinity is still seeing fresh native Winter Steelhead moving up the river. The upper river is starting to see a few more down runners now in the mix.
Trinity River Conditions are clearing fast in the upper river and is dropping much faster than in previous years. Last report it started to clear by the time I got the fishing report posted. I haven’t seen the river drop like this in many years. This year it is acting more like the Smith than the Trinity River I am used to fishing. This past week fishing pressure has been slow with few fishermen out on the river. Last Sunday my fishing buddy Ed Trujillo came up and took our friend Joe Daher, owner of the Bigfoot Motel and his son Rodney fishing while I was at the PFMC meeting. Rodney caught and released a nice fresh 10lb native Steelie and landed a 5lb hatchery fish. You might know this is only the first time Rodney has fished the upper river and he skunked both of the experienced fishers. Yesterday Ed T. was up again fishing the Junction City to Pigeon Point run with Steve Wozniak, of San Ramon. They hooked 5 nice fish and landed 4 using Brad’s wigglers. All the fish were released. Ed told me that they had the river all to themselves.
Klamath River; yesterday as I was driving up to Orleans for the “Kids Fish Lake Fishing Derby” fund raiser I checked out the river. To my surprise it was in pretty good fishing condition, a little high but fishable. Tom Wilson says that he has still been catching a few adult winter run Iron Heads in the Weitchpec area. Most of the good fishing has been up around the Seiad Valley or the I-5 corridor. Those that have been out were fly fishing or drifting roe for ½-pounders or adults to 5lbs.
River Flows and Water Levels
Trinity Lake is 99.34ft below the over flow (1ft decrease) and 49.5 percent of capacity at 12:00pm today.
Inflow to the lake is 1,692cfs and 330cfs is being released to Lewiston Lake with 47cfs to the Sacramento River.
Trinity River at Lewiston releases are 305cfs, water temperatures 46.4 degrees.
Limekiln Gulch is 4.8ft at 432cfs. Douglas City is 2.7ft at 701cfs, water temps are 43.8 degrees, air 54 degrees.
Helena/North Fork is 10.5ft at 1,150cfs, water temps 45, air 55. Cedar Flat is 6ft at 2,100cfs.
Willow Creek 4,560cfs, water at 45.5, air 58. Hoopa is 17.1ft at 7,680cfs, water 46.6. Mouth of Trinity 14.7K cfs.
Klamath River releases at Iron Gate Dam are 1,480 cfs. Seiad Valley is 7.3ft at 2.430cfs.
Happy Camp estimated at 3,200cfs. Somes Bar estimated at 5,560cfs. Orleans is 6.8ft at 7,100cfs.
Klamath at 101 is 14ft at 19.5K cfs water temperatures at 46.8 degrees.
Temperatures in the valley last week were 58/34 degrees rain 5.85 inches, to date 56.2 inches. Weather for next week 66/37 degrees with showers for Tuesday and sun the rest of the week. For the last tow weeks the area has seen 7.05 inches of rain and snow on most of the passes and higher elevations.
