Trinity Lake is 69ft. below the over flow and 60% of capacity. Average inflow to the lake for the week is 0.7cfs.

1,178cfs is being released to the Sacramento River.

Trinity River @ Lewiston is 467cfs & water temp is 49.4, air 56 @ 12:00pm today.

Douglas City is 2.2ft. @ 468cfs, water temps 48.8, air 71. Helena / North Fork is 9.3ft. @ 461cfs, water temps 50.8, air 60 degrees. Cedar Flat is 3ft. @ 508cfs. Willow Creek est. @ 544cfs & water about 61, air 60. Hoopa is 11.5ft. @ 702cfs.

Klamath River releases at Iron Gate are 1,250cfs. Seiad Valley is 2ft. @ 1,180cfs. Happy Camp est. @ 1,215cfs.

Somes Bar est. @ 1,362cfs. Orleans is 3.4ft. @ 1,710cfs. Mouth of Trinity 2,412cfs water 59.Klamath @ 101 8.4ft. @ 2,590cfs.

Last weeks temperatures for he Trinity Valley were 82/40 with scattered showers that only dropped about 0.1 inch of rain. Next weeks forecast is for 73/44 degrees and some more scattered showers by Wednesday and Thursday. I this comes about we should see some good fishing for the weekend. It is raining as I write this report so that should help both rivers a lot.

The Klamath estuary is now down to 60 degrees. The mouth is partially blocked by a sand bar and the fish are only able to get in during high tides. This is presenting a serious problem for the fishermen as the harvest counts for the lower river are dropping. I have noticed that the Iron Gate Dam releases are being upped some but not enough to help with unblocking the mouth but it has really helped with the water temperatures. I would imagine that BOR is hoping that the possible coming rains will help with the flows and greater flows WILL defiantly open the mouth.

The Willow Creek weir count for Sept 23 shows 174 Chinook for the week, which is 80% of last year at this same time. It also shows that the Steelhead count was down some from the previous week to 125, of which 112 were hatchery fish. We are double the count for Steelhead for this time last year. If this keeps up we will break last years return of hatchery Steelhead, which was 33,000. If we were to surpass last years return we could make a new record for return of Steelhead since the dam was put in. NOAA would be hard pressed to claim that Klamath River basin Steelhead are an endangered species. One thing for sure we can say that the Trinity River Restoration Program is working. Now all we have to do is try and increase the Chinook salmon returns and then we will have done a good job. Our next problem is to get the National Marine Fisheries Service to agree that Trinity River hatchery Coho Salmon are not endangered and maybe get that type of fishing opened. That is going to be a big and long hard fought battle because NMFS does NOT like to admit that they are wrong.

This last week, Friday and Saturday I fished the Del Loma section and the Hoopa area of Tish Tang with good results for my customers. Friday we ran from Tish Tang down to Roland's gravel bar and landed two very nice adult Steelhead, one on flies and one on plugs. The best part was that Bob bowman Petaluma hooked and landed his very first steelhead and it was a beauty, 23-1/2 inches that weighed about 4lbs. He was really excited; every time the fish jumped out of the water he would let out a big holler. Saturday we didn't have as good of luck landing our fish. We floated the Del Loma section of the river and hooked two adults but couldn't get them to the boat. When we came to the Lone Pine section of the river we ran into about 6 fly fishers lined up for about a quarter of a mile. As we worked our way down through that stretch of the river we were able to watch 3 very nice adult Steelies hooked and landed. The problem was that we didn't get a chance to fish that stretch because of so many fishermen.

The Lower Klamath has only been able to harvest 2,000 salmon of their 5,000 quotas. Fishing has been slow for the last week but once the mouth breaks open it's "Whoa Nelly Hold the Horses" because it will be nothing but salmon trying to get up the river. Some of the fishermen throwing hardware have had fair to good success at the mouth of the Trinity where it flows into the Klamath but it has been a hard fish for fishing above Orleans. All I can say is just be patient because "they are a com'en". I haven't heard very much about the algae bloom so I am hoping that with the cooler weather and cooler water it has stopped and the Klamath is clearing up. Until next time ----------

Websites: MyOutdoorBuddy.com, Willowcreekchamber.com,
from Willow Creek, CA Phone 530-629-3554, E-mail yen2fish@yahoo.com