Catching a break — if they beat the heat

Although they typically trap only 5% to 10% of the run, sometimes they end up trapping more, but with the trapping numbers they’ve recorded thus far, the run might be looking strong.

“If we’ve trapped a high proportion of the run, it doesn’t necessarily translate to a record run,” Sinnen said. “But, based on what we’re seeing it looks like it will be a strong run this year.” The run size above Junction City Weir, Sinnen said, ranges between 2,381 to almost 63,000, and that number is based on the fish counted at the hatchery, natural spawners and harvested fish

Chinook salmon and all salmon populations are very cyclical, but the numbers in recent years haven’t been great, according to Sinnen.

“We’ve had kind of depressed numbers over the last, oh five, six years, but it does look like we’re seeing a rebound,” Sinnen said. “There are some environmental indicators that suggest there are good survival conditions, particularly in the ocean.” Sinnen explained salmon have two distinct life phases, their freshwater phase and their marine phase.

The ocean seems to be in a better ocean cycle, which Sinnen said promotes higher than average survival. When the chinook salmon have high survival in their marine phase, this usually leads to high returns.

Despite there being what seems to be good ocean conditions for chinook salmon to do well, Sinnen mentioned under the California Endangered Species Act chinook salmon had been listed as threatened. Because of this the number of chinook salmon people are allowed to catch has been lower, which Sinnen said may be a reason why they’re seeing more fish.

“Because you know, spring chinook are listed as threatened we’re protecting them more rigorously. There’s a one fish daily bag limit, you can keep one fish a day, and you can only have up to two in possession,” Sinnen said.

Karl Seitz, Fisheries Management Division lead with the Hoopa Valley Tribe, said the Pacific salmon populations of the West Coast aren’t doing particularly great and California is no exception. He added that overarching factors have been contributing to the salmon’s poor population trends, which include climate change, habitat degradation, dams and diversions, historic overfishing and of particular importance, the California drought. There’s still hope for the salmon, he said, but there are many things that currently aren’t in the fish’s favor.

“The Tribe, along with the state and federal partners, are working on numerous restoration projects, trying to make the river habitat better for both juvenile and adult salmon. But there’s a lot of factors not in the salmon’s favor, many of which we can’t necessarily do much about at the regional level,” Seitz said. “We can work toward improving habitat quality, carefully managing our fisheries, and fighting for more water from the Trinity River diversion to help our salmon, but with rising temperatures and persistent drought in California, times are going to be tough. The longer and more intense fire seasons are also not helping, burning riparian trees along tributaries, which are important habitat for juvenile salmon, reducing shade and increasing water temperatures, as well as increasing sediment input which could suffocate incubating eggs and potentially impact the ability of juvenile salmon to forage effectively.”

Regarding tags when fishing, Seitz explained the process and importance of tagging fish at the weir and counting them to get the yearly run-size estimates.

“By knowing how many tags we put out at the weir, and then how many of those tagged fish we recaptured at the next weir or at the hatchery as well as the angler reported catch, versus how many untagged fish were observed,” Seitz said, “we can use statistical interference to estimate how many fish in total were coming through the river system [in a season].”

To report tags found on fish in the Trinity River, people can fill out the Fish Return Tag Form on the California Department of Fish and Wildlife home page, or at this link, https://wildlife.ca.gov/Fishing/Inland/Fish-Tags\.

To see the Trinity River Annual Reports, people can click on to the California Department of Fish and Wildlife home page or at https://wildlife.ca.gov/Publications.