Happy Groundhogs Day; the trouble is that the official Groundhog is frozen back east so he can’t come out!

MEETINGS: California Fish & Game Commission: Feb.6 CFDC meeting to be held at the Resources Building Auditorium, 1416 Ninth St, Sacramento at 08:30. Topics of concern will be the listing of Northern California Summer Steelhead listing and upper Klamath-Trinity river spring run Chinook salmon. Issues of the Klamath River Basin sport fishing will be discussed. Comments by Feb. 1, oral comments will be taken at the meeting.
CDFW: Feb. 27, Annual Salmon Information meeting will be held at the Sonoma County Water Agency office, 404 Aviation Blvd. Santa Rosa from 10:00am to 4:00pm. This meeting will provide information on California salmon stocks for ocean salmon fishing for commercial, sport and In-River sportfishing. The public is encouraged to provide comments on potential fishing alternatives for 2019 California ocean salmon fisheries. Public input will be used for developing a range of season alternatives for the California salmon fisheries at the March 5-12, 2019 PFMC meeting.

Sierra snowpack: The vital Sierra Nevada snowpack provides an important part of the water supply for California. The second survey of this year shows the snowpack at 98% of average for this time of year and 71% of average for the entire season. Which brings us to the snowpack for the Klamath-Trinity. At this time, we are behind in snowpack but the storms we are having right now will hopefully bring us up close to normal for the season. Shasta at 64% and Trinity at 65% of capacity we will need more snow and rain to bring them up to 90 or 100 percent of capacity.    

NOTE: Don’t forget, anglers can still sign up for the Humboldt Steelhead Days hatchery fish derby by going to humboldtsteelheaddays.com.

Klamath Iron Gate Hatchery: Right now, the counts are still going up for the hatchery and Scott River. I hope to have more on this by next week. 

Trinity River Hatchery: TRH for the week of Jan. 22 thru Jan. 28; Chinook 1, season total 7,705; Coho 0, season total 745; Steelhead 155, season total 1,119.    

Redd Survey: No survey last week due to the weather and the river too high to safely navigate the river.

Fishing: The fishing in the upper Trinity was going great just as this storm came in to close it down. The good part is that the storm also brought in more winter steelhead. We have more rain and possible snow predicted for next week, but after that some good weather will bring on some top winter run Iron Head fishing in the upper sections. The South Fork started the Coon Creek slide to dump in more slate which made the river a milky green with about 2ft of visibility for the Willow Creek section of the Trinity, but I expect after the river drops to a fishable level, we will see some good fishing also. 

Mid-Klamath: Iron Gate Dam is releasing 960cfs. at this time which makes the section from the dam down to I-5 a very good possibility of fishing in the near future. I-5 to Happy Camp will get better if the next storm doesn’t bring in too much rain. Right now, the Seiad Valley is flowing 2,284cfs and I am sure this storm will increase that flow. So, for the time being, you can sit by the fire and work over you gear so that you are ready for the next clear episode. One thing I have always done during bad weather is go over my fishing line to make sure there are no nicks or scrapes, and replace all leaders that have even the slightest nick just so I wont loose that fish of a life time.

Lake Conditions:  Whiskeytown is 86% of capacity (a decrease of 1%) with inflows of 743cfs and releasing 572cfs into Clear Creek and on to Keswick. Shasta is 64% of capacity (an increase of 1% plus 3ft) with inflows of 9,149cfs and releasing 2,251cfs into Keswick. Keswick is 87% of capacity (a decrease of 4%) with inflows of 3,000cfs and releasing 3,151cfs into the Sacramento river. Oroville Lake is 40% of capacity (an increase of 1% plus 7ft) with inflows of 5,837cfs with releases of 1,158cfs into the Feather River. Folsom Lake is 54% of capacity (an increase of 3% plus 3ft) with inflows of 3,745cfs with releases of 2,060cfs into the Feather River.

Trinity Lake: The lake is 50ft below the overflow (a decrease of 11ft) and 65% of capacity (an increase of 1%) with inflows of 2,231cfs and 590cfs is being released into Lewiston Lake with 283cfs going to Whiskeytown Lake and on to Keswick Power Plant, which is releasing 3,131cfs into the Sacramento River. 

Trinity River flows and Conditions: Lewiston Dam releases are 307cfs and water temperatures of N/A degrees and air is N/A as of 1:00pm Sunday Feb. 2, 2019. Limekiln Gulch is 5.58ft at 956cfs and water temps of 45, Douglas City is 8.09ft and 1,844cfs. with air temps of 46 and water at 45.5 degrees. Junction City is 4.14ft at 1,810cfs. Helena is 11.67ft at 1,857cfs with water temps of 46.3 degrees. Cedar Flat (Burnt Ranch) is 5.64ft at 2,058cfs. South Fork of the Trinity is 5.71ft at 2,154cfs. Willow Creek is estimated at 4,212cfs and air is 53 degrees and water at 45.8 degrees. Hoopa is 15.73ft at 5,026cfs and is 46 degrees. Water flows at the mouth of the Trinity River at the Klamath are estimated to be 12,235cfs.

Klamath: Iron Gate is releasing 960cfs. Seiad Valley is 3.46ft at 2,284cfs. Happy Camp is estimated at 2,753cfs, the Salmon River is 4.21ft at 2,153cfs, Somes Bar is estimated to be 5,056cfs. Orleans is 6.44ft at 7,209cfs, the Klamath River at Terwer Creek is 12.62ft at 15,752cfs and water temps of 46.5 degrees. Flows for the Smith River at Jedia Smith is 7.78ft and flows of 2,548cfs and at Dr. Fine Bridge is 7.79ft with flows of 2,560cfs. 

Temperatures in the Valley last week were 88 hi and a low of 33. Rain for the week was 0.92in and the total rain for this water year to date is 33.81 inches with snow predicted this coming week with hail and rain showers. I advise you to call ahead for weather and road conditions if you are brave enough to try and make the trip, otherwise stay home and work of your fishing gear.