Fulton’s Blog - Words from the water

the rains over the last week have raised the flow and colored up the water. this seems to be quite good for fishing. a big push of salmon came through this week and provided a good time for our little weekend family float. a half day of fishing produced eight salmon and a nice hatchery steelhead. the salmon were all pretty dark and not what i would call great table fare but the steelhead fit on the BBQ just fine. a few casts from the bank this morning before breakfast yielded a dime bright native steelie as well, so i am hopeful that the fishing will be better than it has been. this is getting pretty late in the season to be seeing good runs of salmon but given how slow the fishing has been up to now, a late run is a possibility. thanksgiving is when the hatchery steelhead run typically comes through. put the two together and this could be a good week to get on the river.

the last few trips have been a bit of a let down as far as the fish catching is concerned. we have managed to put at least one fish in the boat on every trip except for one skunked day. that is hardly what i would call good fishing, and certainly not the type of fishing i thought we were going to see this year. it started out good and then just kind of bottomed out. there are still a few more weeks to a month of good fishing time left so it could still pick up. as far as the wildlife sightings are concerned, this season has been great. we have seen bears up close on each of the last three trips and on the last one we saw a mom and two cubs swim across the river right in front of us and around the bend a big cinnamon bear cruising the shore less than 50 yards from our boat. we have been seeing eagles regularly as well. this year has provided the rare treat of a pair of mature golden eagles calling our section of river home. quite an impressive sight. another curious observation is the large number of salmon spawning here in the lower river. they usually spawn higher up, but this year they seem to be all over the place. in another week or two the bald eagles will be here to feed on them as they finish spawning and wash up on the banks. this could also account for the many up close bear sightings as they seem to be cruising the riverbanks looking for fish so intently that they don’t even notice us watching them.

last week we had a good bit of rain which raised and muddied the river. the freshet spurred a bunch of salmon to move up out of the klamath. i had a little fun family fishing time this afternoon and we managed to catch a nice chinook for dinner.

after a couple of attempts, forrest got to see his first steelhead. he seemed impressed. he’s still a little small to handle the rod by himself but he certainly is capable of cheering on his parents as they hooked and battled this beautiful native steelie. the run is just getting started but the fish are here and the catching will only get better over the next few weeks. i think this is going to be a good season. we’ll keep you posted.

spring steelhead fishing here on the lower trinity has been very slow this season with half pounders making up most of the catch. they are a real kick on a light trout rod but after years of wide open march madness to look forward to i must say the catching is a bit of a letdown. sorry to sound like a broken record but this has been the case across the board for the entire season. the department of fish and game missed the mark in a most severe way in regards to their run predictions and from the looks of things they are predicting another “banner” run for this next fall in the klamath basin. every year is different and i have not found their run predictions to be an indicator of anything in the past so we will just have to wait and see what comes up the river next fall. as for the ocean fishery, we will likely have no salmon season again, and due to the great expense of maintaining a top notch commercial ocean charter boat with very little interest in long range  bottom fishing trips i will no longer be offering saltwater guide trips.

the fishing in the lower/middle trinity has been very slow for the last week or so. there are some native steelhead around but the odds of running into an aggressive fish that hasn’t already been spooked by someone else is not very good. if we don’t get alot of rain soon we will be looking at pretty serious drought conditions for next spring and summer. most of the driftboat trips for the last few weeks have been a struggle to get a fish or two with a few skunked days as well. i was beginning to feel that i was in a fish catching funk that needed to end. a solo day on a remote river is a good way to shake the skunk. lets hope it carries over to the driftboat.                    

The river is back to low and clear and there are very few adults around. we have to work hard for every one we get but they are really nice fish when they finally do show themselves. mostly there have been native steelhead and halfpounders but a few sea run browns are starting to show up. the water looks perfect below the south fork and i have been hearing of fresh fish coming into the lower klamath over the last few weeks so maybe soon we will see a big influx on new fish. one can hope. we’ll keep trying.

Greetings,
the lower trinity River is low and clear and badly in need of some water.  there are lots of half-pounders and a very few adults.
Caught this nice native at the end of the day.

Alex

The last rain brought in some big bright freshies. A good week was had by all who were on the coastal streams. another good shot of rain could bring on round two. we’ll just have to wait and see. the lower trinity has been very slow lately so it is now time to watch the weather and streamflow gauges to find the next hotspot.

although the catching has been a little slower than normal, the size of the salmon has been pretty exciting. the run size appears to be pretty good but the river is very low and in years past i have noted slower fishing following large forest fires which we have certainly had this year. as long as we keep catching a few of those big kings every day it is pretty hard to complain much  about the success rate. the steelhead have been rather large this year too, though they are almost all natives and must be released.