Trinity Lake is 73ft. below the over flow and 58% of capacity. Average inflow to the lake for the week is 962cfs.

424cfs is being released to the Sacramento River.

Trinity River @ Lewiston is 314cfs & water temp is 48, air 44 @ 09:00am today.

Douglas City is 1.9ft. @ 300cfs, water temps 48, air 40. Helena / North Fork is 9.1ft. @ 378cfs, water temps 49.6, air 41 degrees. Cedar Flat is 3ft. @ 508cfs. Willow Creek est. @ 632cfs & water about 53, air 50. Hoopa is 12ft. @ 1,030cfs water 56.

Klamath River releases at Iron Gate are 1,320cfs. Seiad Valley is 2.9ft. @1,760cfs. Happy Camp est. @ 1,850cfs.

Somes Bar est. @ 2,355cfs. Orleans is 4.3ft. @ 2,740cfs. Mouth of Trinity @ Klamath 3,770 cfs water 57 degrees.

Klamath @ 101 9.6ft. @ 5,050cfs water temps 57.2 degrees.

Last weeks temperatures for the Trinity Valley were 68/42 with no rain. Next weeks forecast is for 73/41 degrees with scattered showers Monday and overcast mornings with sunny afternoons Tuesday through Friday.

The rain last week forced the Willow Creek weir to be removed because of high water and was not replaced until Wednesday of this week. Fish counts were very low for the remainder of the week but because the Klamath is clear we are hoping that the remainder of the fall Chinook salmon will come into the Trinity. Because of the high water on the Lower Klamath there was not creel count for the week but expect to have an update by Wednesday.

The fishing was kind of slow in the Willow Creek Hoopa area this past week but there were some nice whopper Steelhead landed below the weir. A couple of drift boats and some rafts drifted the Horse Lento Canyon and did OK but no great numbers were hooked. I took a couple of Stockton boys on the Tish Tang drift and we worked all day for three hatchery trout and one nice 5lbs hatchery steelhead. The hot rod for the day belonged to Jared Schoennauer while his cousin was only able to hook the trout. Not what I would call a great drift. Jim Thomas is still the leader for landing a great 29in 9-3/4lbs-hatchery buck up on the Del Loma run in the early part of the month. In fact Jim is looking to have it mounted because it is the largest steelie he has ever landed. The upper Trinity is still kicking out some great fishing but the fishing pressure from fishermen and drift boats is getting really heavy on the weekends. It seems as though every fisherman in the state wants to come up here and give the Trinity a try. This is good for business but hard for the fishing. The river can only stand so much traffic before it becomes over loaded. Winter is coming on so I would imagine that it would change very quickly once the cold weather sets in. That is when the true Winter Steelhead fishermen come out.

Down at the mouth of the Trinity in Weitchpec fishing has been on again and off again. When it is on it is hot with plenty of Chinook and steelhead being hooked. It appears that the hardware throwers are out doing the fly fishers but that is only a miner deterrent when it comes to fishing because all fishermen love to watch a nice fish being hooked and landed. The true test comes when it is time to release the fish in good health. Now that is the act of a true fisherman. So many times I have watched a fisherman improperly release a fish back into the river to only watch the fish float out into the river and turn belly up. You must get a firm grip on the fish at the tail and work it back and forth until the fish has gained sufficient strength to swim off on it's own. Then and only then will the fish survive?

The Klamath is still dropping but there seems to be plenty of Salmon and Steelhead heading up river. Orleans and Somes Bar have reported that fishing is good and that there are plenty of both species in the river. This should be good news for those that love to fish the Seiad Valley and around Happy Camp. It also means that the Iron Gate Hatchery will be able to make their egg quota for this year. From what info I have received the host at E Ne Nuk campground will be shutting down the campground Monday for the winter. They say that Harlan is also the "HOT STICK" in the area, so maybe next year he will be nice and give some of the Newbees a lesson or two so they can take home some fish. Well we will just have to wait until next year when they open up the campgrounds and see what happens. Hope to see more of you in town next year. Until next time --------

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