Klamath, Trinity, and Sac get a salmon season again...

[downriver79]

First one since 2022...

CA Fish and Game press release

From Kenny Priest's Fishing the North Coast blog:

Spring Chinook seasons will reopen as follows:
• Klamath River: July 1 – Aug. 14
• Trinity River: July 1 – Aug. 31

The daily bag limit will be one Chinook salmon, with a possession limit of two fish of any size.


For the fall Chinook fishery, the commission adopted a basin wide quota of 3,248 adult salmon for the Klamath Basin.

Fall seasons will be:
• Klamath River: Aug. 15 – Dec. 31 (closed above the I-5 Bridge)
• Trinity River: Sept. 1 – Dec. 31


The quota breakdown includes:
• Lower Klamath (Hwy. 96 bridge to the mouth): 1,624 adults
• Lower Klamath estuary below Highway 101: 487 adults
After this quota is caught, it triggers a complete closure of the Spit Area (within 100 yards of the channel through the sand spit formed at the Klamath River mouth). The rest of the area below U.S. Highway 101 (estuary) will remain open to recreational fishing
• Upper Klamath (CA/OR border to Highway 96): 552 adults
• Lower Trinity (downstream of the Denny Road bridge at Hawkins Bar to the confluence with the Klamath.): 536 adults
• Upper Trinity (250 feet below Lewiston Dam to the Hwy. 299 West bridge at Cedar Flat): 536 adults


Regulations for the fall fishery include a two-fish daily bag limit, though anglers may retain only one adult salmon ≥ 23 inches per day. The possession limit is six Chinook total, with no more than three adults ≥ 23 inches.


Once individual sub-quotas are met in each section, retention will shift to jack salmon under 23 inches total length only.


After years of shutdowns and uncertainty, California salmon anglers finally have something they haven’t had in a long time — opportunity.

 

[RRSmith]

Finally CA DFW and the Feds have decided to semi protect wild Klamath spring run with a July 1 start date. This assures that most of what's left of the wild springers have safely made into the Salmon River and upper South Fork Trinity River watersheds. There's a hatchery run that goes up the mainstem Trinity River.

For years, only Klamath fall chinook were managed under harvest and escapement quotas, all while the wild spring run steadily declined. The argument in the past always was that there was no genetic differences between spring and fall run and both were lumped into the same ESU. The discovery of the genetic allele that affects run timing has likely infuenced this - that and dam removal. And perhaps a small dose of common sense...