The K - Not Its Best Day

[John H]

The Klamath at I-5 is looking like half water and half lake bottom sediment. I have not seen anything like it. It is a bad time to be a fish in the Klamath but I guess you have to get it out of there somehow. Hopefully it will move through fast and better days will come for the river. A hundred years of sediment and other crap coming down all at once.

[MThompson]

That's discouraging. I guess I should be glad a got to fish it a few times before all this. So what do all the scientists say about a return to normalcy? Years? Decades?

[Bill Kiene semi-retired]

Wow John, looks like you could plow and plant that river now.





I was so fortunate to be able to fish with Joe Shirshac in the 1960s on the middle Klamath River.

We stayed in Joe's trailer and then drove, parked, walked down to runs and fished.

Not many drift boats in those days, not like today.

Joe liked to fish from Johnson's Bar upstream to Happy Camp.

Because of Joe taking us youngsters up there, we learned his runs.



Later, I was also very fortunate to get to go with Terry Thomas and his bunch to fish the Lower Klamath River.

With their good jet boat guide, we fished from Klamath Glenn upstream to above Johnson's Bar.

That lower river is wide and open with gravel and good for old farts like me.



Sadly, I might never get back to that amazing river, but I had some great fishing there.



If they get the dams out it should be better eventually.

Those shallow lakes on the Klamath above I-5 get real mucking in the late summer.



Back in the day, we would get the Klamath River folks into the shop in August getting ready for the Fall fishing.

[fivefingers]

When they took out the Elwa, steelhead returned past the dam (after it being there for about a century), and were seen redding up, after a few years. Nature is incredibly resilient if you leave it alone.

[MThompson]

When they took out the Elwa, steelhead returned past the dam (after it being there for about a century), and were seen redding up, after a few years. Nature is incredibly resilient if you leave it alone.

That's what I'm hoping.

[Bill Kiene semi-retired]

They are removing many dams now, World wide.

Stream restoration is happening a lot now too.

Most dams removed are smaller or not useful anymore.



In our Baby Boomer's lifetimes, after World War II, me born in 1945, they built most of the big dams in America.

It is heart warmer for me to see them coming down now, where possible.

Imagine the conditions of some of the rivers in the future with no dams.

Not just the return of our salmon and steelhead but hundreds of different aquatic life like Eels, Shad, smelt, etc.


For those born in 1980 and later, I don't think they got to see the quality of our fishing and hunting in Northern California.

[winxp_man]

That's what I'm hoping.

It will be all good 100% how many dam removals have taken place where fish came back and did their thing? Quite a few now. Given the chance the wild life does what it needs to do.

[MThompson]

That sounds good. I've seen some recent drone footage on YouTube of the river running through the dams. Cool to watch. Hopefully we have decent runoff for awhile to flush things out. I couldn't help but wonder how the river will be in extremely dry years down the road without any storage. I guess we'll see

[Bill Kiene semi-retired]

After all 4 dams are down we will need a "100-year flood" again like in 1955 and 1964.

It might not affect me but I am excited that the America's grandchildren will be able to fish some free-flowing wild rivers.

[mogaru]

In this case, how do we know that something went very wrong? Easy, the media is not doing their job which is informing all of us of this catastrophe. I would like to be positive but at the same time I have to be realistic and something tells me that 100 years of muck, won't be swept in a few months, specially in a warm and dry state. I encourage everybody to get informed on this issue. There is another thread open under the conservation tab, which touches the impact on local residents water wells and wildlife.