Fall Season Has Been Amazing…

We are experiencing an amazing Fall Season right now on both the Lower Sac and Trinity Rivers… I honestly cannot remember a better October in many, many years (maybe 10-12yrs?). We finally have a solid salmon run!!! The trout and steelhead are just as happy about it, too.

The egg bite has been en fuego!!!!

The fall-run Chinook salmon are absolutely pouring into the Sacramento River system this year. It’s a mega run and the size of these fish are incredible. 4 yr old ocean fish. Whether we credit the 3-year Salmon Fishing Closure, positive ocean conditions, river habitat work, 3 wet winters in a row… or just cyclical cycles of these salmonids… or maybe a combination of all those factors… we are in the middle of a mega-run currently.

Hopefully we are witnessing the recovery of our CA salmon fishery…

On the Trinity River we are seeing a decent return of Chinook salmon as well. These fish keep trickling into the upper and middle river and redds are scattered all over the river right now. Each week I am seeing more new redds popping up in new areas.

Water conditions have been great! We continue to receive minor rain events each week, which keep flows elevated just a bit above the current dam release of 450cfs. Dam release flows will soon drop to the (dreadful) 300cfs around the 16th of October… I do dislike this minimum flow - but with any luck maybe this next rain event will keep the river a bit higher for the foreseeable future.

There has been a very good run (so far) of BIG steelhead this season, too! Not only are we seeing good numbers of mature steelhead but some absolute studs. Lot’s of 27-28” big girth steelhead in the Trinity this year with a few in the 30” range. The quality of some of these stlhd lately are almost coastal reminiscent… they have been Hot Fish!!!!!!

There is MUCH to be optimistic about as we move into the primary steelhead and fall trout season. If you are not fishing in the next month or two you are missing out.

I have a few dates still open in December and my January-Febuary calendar is pretty open right now. Contact me directly to chat about your plans. I anticipate our winter steelhead season to be very good this year… so don’t sleep on getting dates asap.