Trinity River Salmon Season Winds Down…
It has been a stellar summer Chinook salmon season on the Upper Trinity River for 2022. We saw a solid return of springer-salmon during the July/August season (these are hatchery fish) followed by an incredible fall-run which arrived in September.
This season we experienced the largest run of Chinook salmon that I’ve witnessed in many years on the Trinity River… lots of big, healthy king salmon this season!!
Currently, (mid October) there are spawning salmon stacked up in every shallow riffle on redds… from the top all the way through Junction City. It appears many of these fall-run fish are wild! This is going to be a huge spawning year.
Let’s hope we get a big, wet winter with lot’s of rain & snowstorms which will provide vital water for these fish. This could be a huge recruitment year and with all the restoration and rearing habitat work that’s been done over the last decade… There is much to be cautiously optimistic about.
The water release flows for much of September were increased to 900cfs (up from the baseline 450cfs). The reason for the increase in water flows on the Trinity was not under the best of circumstances.
Cold water was needed from Trinity Lake to “cool” the Klamath River down many miles downriver. The mighty Klamath got very warm during the months of July-August.
Additionally, the Klamath had another compounding rough spell when a major runoff event occurred after an intense thundershower on top of the devastation from the McKinney Fire. The Klamath River was having one bad event after another this summer.
The “emergency water release” lead to some awesome river conditions for us anglers as well as the fish within the Trinity River. No doubt the higher flows and colder water got fish (salmon & steelhead) to move upriver.
River flows at 900cfs were cold and clean and it was perfect for salmon fishing with plugs, spinners and drifting roe. Yes, I fly fish 12 months a year… but when it comes to guiding salmon trips… we fish hardware and gear!
For updated info on CA wildfires check out: https://www.capradio.org/articles/2022/10/08/latest-updates-on-northern-california-wildfires/#mckinney-fire
Warm water conditions are unfortunately a common occurrence on the Klamath River - and often times water releases are called on from Trinity Lake.
There were many reports of Ich and Columnaris infected fish and then on top of that the mud and burn debris from the thundershower caused the soluble oxygen levels in the water to drop dreadfully low for all fish.
There was a documented fish kill this summer in the Klamath River. Fortunately, perhaps the timing of this event was at a “good time” as the bulk of incoming salmon had not entered that portion of the river yet???
Still don’t have all the information and facts. One thing is certain… the upper Trinity River. DID experience a very good return of adult salmon this season and they successfully spawned in the river.
These systems are very dynamic and there is a lot of complexity within the rivershed. Time will tell what the affects of all these summer events will be.
In the meantime, pray, wish, hope, do a rain dance and send positive mojo… whatever we can do… we need a GOOD WINTER this season for these fish to continue their legacy.
