Trinity River Fishing Report
by E.B. Duggan
8-18-2019
RIVER CLOSURES:
The Tribal Ceremonies are now being done on the Mid-Klamath which will cause some river access closures. Please respect these areas for the short time access will be restricted; Aug. 11th to Aug. 20th Near Orleans to Camp Creek;
Aug. 26th to Sept. 4th Near Somes Bar.
Hoopa Weir; I hope to attend the next meeting in Hoopa to the meeting about how the weir will be operate through the trapping season. Right now, it is not clear as to what fish are going to be harvested except for Chinook salmon. There was some talk about harvesting all Trinity Hatchery marked steelhead and all TRH marked Coho salmon. I would hope this is not true because the hatchery would not be able to reach their egg quota for this brood year. Not being able to reach the egg quota would make it very hard to reach the required releases from the hatchery.
There is only 13 more days for the Fall salmon run to open, Sept 1st. August 31st also closes the Trinity from Cedar Flat Bridge down to the Bridge at Hawkins Bar. This is known as the Falls area of the Trinity River and includes the Burnt Ranch and Grays Falls areas of the river. This closure is from Sept. 1st through December 31st and allows for NO fishing for any species. The Grays Falls is a very favorite area to fish for spring salmon.
The River Restoration project above Junction City is still on going and providing water turbidity as well as river passage for drift boats. If you plan to fish this area, I would recommend that you use the Junction City Camp Ground launch area for the time being.
Junction City Weir counts: Julian week 32 the week ending Aug. 12; Chinook salmon, 19-jack, 108-adult, total 127, season total 294; Coho 0; steelhead, ½-lbs 0, adults 7, season total 69; Brown Trout 5, season total 18.
Fishing: Fishing the Upper Trinity any where above the Round house should be very good for Spring Run salmon still as the weir count is very high. With last weeks count of 108 Chinook salmon I would say there is plenty of salmon in the upper reaches of the Trinity. Fishing will be in the early mornings as the temperatures have been getting very high in the afternoon. We are getting a little relief in the valley right now with air temps in the high 80s but that is not going to last very long as it is forecasted to reach 106 by next Tuesday. (Your fish will already be cooked)
Summer releases have arrived and Lewiston is now releasing 437cfs into the river today. I hope the releases for the Hoopa Boat Dance will improve the water quality because air temps of 100 to 106 is defiantly going to heat up the river and will surely slow or possibly stop the salmon from making that left hand turn into the Trinity.
Mid-Klamath: Due to computer glitch I was unable to get the readings for the lakes and rivers so I don’t have the Weitchpec water flows. It must have been hot up at E Ne Nuck because John didn’t send out a report abut fishing the Mid-Klamath. We are in the “Dog Days of Summer” and that usually means fishing the Lower Trinity and Mid-Klamath is slow.
Today Sunday Aug. 18th at 12:00, I have no report for; Lake Conditions, Trinity Lake, Trinity River flows and conditions nor the Mid-Klamath. Sorry about that and I hope I can do better next week.
Temperatures in the Valley last week were 100 hi with a low of 53. Rain for the week was 0.00in and total rain for the water year to date of 67.93 inches, with snow of 4.5in. in the valley to date. Forecasts for coming week are for temperatures in the valley to reach 106 by next Tuesday and lots of sunshine for the next week. It looks like we are going to have the “Hot Days of Summer” in August instead of July. I suggest that you crank up the icemaker and set up the shade screen.
Websites: MyOutdoorBuddy.com, Willowcreekchamber.com,
from Willow Creek, CA Phone 530-629-3554, E-mail yen2fish@yahoo.com
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