Klamath Fishing

[winxp_man]

Going up today and will be there for a few days maybe we will see how it does. But fish are starting to go up. There are thousands in the Klamath estuary as we speak just moving in and out again. I will have a report when I get back and let you guys know how it goes.

[itsbenlong]

Good luck Aron, looking forward to hearing your report. Hoping to go up soon as well!

[winxp_man]

Thanks Ben! Hope we will get into some fish!

Well we are stopped at a gas station near 299 and 101 and we kept looking and stopping around the Trinity. There are fish up the river and will see more as time comes to fall fishing season. The river looks beautiful and hopefully with more rain this fall and winter season we will see it get into better shape.

[winxp_man]

So I'm finally back from the trip I went on on the Klamath river. Got to say what an experience fishing different parts of the river. The major part of the trip I got to fish from salmon with my TCX #9 14' at the mouth of the river and sometimes the fish would run back towards the ocean. Its a whole new experience for me. The river was not really that deep so I got away with a iFlight 600gr head and T-14 10' with no problem. One of the main draw backs and a major one for me was forgetting the new GoPro H3 at home. I was able to get my brother away from the fishing to take a pic of a nice hen that was somewhere in the #20-25. These fish to me seem to fight just as hard as what we have up in our river systems here locally.

Not going to start any crap and I don't want any crap posted because there is enough of it here. But the fish fight seemed the same. With that I managed to hook about 40 fish and landed most but had to battle some sea lions (and there were a crap load of sea lions out there) and in the end one even managed to take the fish and even spool me. I was expecting this and it is what it is nothing to cry about. In my honest opinion we need some sharks up there to manage some of them sea lions. There were so many fish that where dead because sea lions would kill them for fun. Watched sea lion grab a fish then brought it on shore, and looked at it and saw that the fish was dead so it left the salmon there and went back in the water.

Going back to camp (from the peninsula that we were fishing on) the boat driver had to dodge about a mile of gill nets that were spread out across the whole river as it comes towards the ocean. The sad part is the dead fish and I could see floating down river because of these nets and to make matters worst one boat with 100+ salmon on board went under and then there were dead fish everywhere. I can only imagine the number of adult steelhead caught in these nets and wild for that matter that end up dying. I talked to a real nice sport Native American there that told me some fact like that the nets only have 6" opening so like I said adult steelhead get caught for sure. Then he went on telling me that there were some other Natives bragging how a group of them caught 30K salmon Thursday night which I'm sure these lost dead fish floating back to the ocean are not counted in there annual fish count rights or the boat that flipped and dumped the 100+ for that matter of fact. This really makes me sick in a way but thats just me. Its all about the money they do get paid 5+ per lbs of salmon.

Now on to other fishermen. There were from what I could say about 300+ people fishing along the channel of what that the Klamath river formed and the fish were coming up on. The channel was about I would say 60 yards wide so all the salmon and steelhead coming up where just bombarded by sinkers form like I said 300+ gear fisherman. (There was one guy that came up to me and gave me a high five for fishing with spey rod! ) But now the more tragic part was the poor quality fishermen that this type of fishing attracts. From what I could count there were at least 100 steelhead caught and when released just thrown back in the river like trash and no attempt to revive the damn fish. This was actually going on with all unwanted fish (salmon or stellhead). Just shows the lack of manners and respect for life to me personally.

But besides all seen that I mentioned above these fish still stride to make it up river with all odds stacked against them! I have nothing but the most profound respect and admiration for these fish! Watching them make there way up river just put a smile on my face and happiness that you cant explain in just some simple words. The fight they go through to live and make nature live by there plain and simple existence.......

Beside this I also went up river to the very first set of riffles that you can find on the lower Klamath and ran into a few pods. Caught a few more there to and enjoyed it quite a bit. They do put a real good fight even on while fishing with a #9 TCX spey rod. I used lots of orange and red with some brown hackle tied in on some flies. They were pretty active fish. I would say the river would need a bit more water to make it all work towards salmon coming up river. Up river was not a person in sight and its nice to see the fish get some sort of break from all the people. Down at the ocean side I was lucky to get the first two days with no one around me at the tip of the peninsula so fishing with a spey rod was a breeze. As of now I don't think you can get in there to fish because as time went by more fishermen showed up. Also a boat is needed and is a must to get across to the peninsula. What happened is the river cut the Klamath beach there in half. So you have the river flowing through the channel that has been formed and does not flow straight out like it normally does.

Here is the one pic of a beautiful hen I caught (I will try to get some screen shots of the videos I took with my phone and post them). I did keep 4 fish cant beat the taste of a ocean fish like this!

So here are some pics and enough with the yapping!




This is where I was fishing before crowds started to show up.....













This is when crowds started showing up at the spot I was fishing......















Some netting and sea lion aftermath......

[DAVID95670]

So awsome dude .....spey rods are meant for large salmon......

[TyV]

Wow Aaron, what a report! Glad you got into some great fish but really bummed to hear about the other things that you experienced! Have only seen that sort of chaos fishing in Alaska, sad to know that it has made it's way south.

Sea Lions are simply part of the natural food chain and have adapted to know when the getting is good, surprised to hear they left perfectly good fish on the bank! I guess the getting was really good.

We still need to get out...let's make that happen!

[Bill Kiene semi-retired]

Extremely wild stuff.......thanks Aaron.

[winxp_man]

Wow Aaron, what a report! Glad you got into some great fish but really bummed to hear about the other things that you experienced! Have only seen that sort of chaos fishing in Alaska, sad to know that it has made it's way south.

Sea Lions are simply part of the natural food chain and have adapted to know when the getting is good, surprised to hear they left perfectly good fish on the bank! I guess the getting was really good.

We still need to get out...let's make that happen!

Fish_On I totally understand what you are saying about the seals but when the food chain is broken up as in less sharks to hunt sea lions its makes sea lion number rise and how much will be required to feed such numbers. But it's all good. Talking to quite a few natives up there one said that they actually kill sea lions that go up river. Can't say if its 100% true because its only one person telling me this.

But everything I seen was just another experience and fun time spent with my brother, father and a good family friend that came along. Just wish I would have taken the GoPro with us! next time I guess. How many can say they fished like I did for salmon

[winxp_man]

Extremely wild stuff.......thanks Aaron.

Glad to share it Bill.

[Walter]

With the outright lining that goes om down there they just need to close the first 500 yards of the Klamath. The nets do enough damage.

Unsustainable non-traditional native fishing tactics cause enough damage. Curtail the outright unethical "recreational" fishing. I heard it got up to 700 people on the banks. Many take two limits home a day. Revolving family system with Jr, the little girls, mom, grandma even taking limits home.

Dispicable human behavior.


Glad you got some nice fish on a fly.

I heard the same about wild steelhead but them also being poached outright.