THE FISHING REPORT: Fall colors

The weather will have all changed by the time this report comes out middle of this week. The Thanksgiving weekend however provided absolutely spectacular fall Sonoma County days. Recent rains from last Tuesday’s storm had local and northern rivers on the rise and the report from the Sonoma County Water Agency is that record numbers of Chinook salmon are in the Russian River.
I know anglers are supposed to be fishing for steelhead in the Russian River right now, but truth be told, they are actually fishing for king salmon. Not to say that is wrong (illegal maybe) because they did the same thing last year and every year before, and now the SCWA is reporting over 6,000 king salmon have been spotted by the underwater camera, so one could make the correlation that catch-and-release fishing for king salmon is not having an impact on the return numbers and should just be legalized. That said, the lower river was muddy through the weekend, and the upper around Healdsburg only came into shape on Saturday. A few fish have been hooked and landed but not as many as you would think, given the numbers reported by the agency. This week’s storms should provide enough runoff to get the “real” steelhead season underway. However, there is only seven feet of capacity at Lake Mendocino right now, which will relate to approximately four inches of additional rain. Once received, all bets are off and the Army Corps will start releasing water and the Russian River will need to have drought-like conditions to be fishable again. One could  wonder why so much water is held back in the fall when spawning king salmon could utilize the increased flow to maximize reproduction.
Up north, the Smith River rose to a couple feet below warning flood stage, which was what everyone was hoping for, but the huge expected salmon run doesn’t seem to have materialized. Salmon to 46 pounds were caught on Saturday and Sunday according to River Guide John Klar but just not in the numbers expected. I have no word on the Eel, which was also expecting a large run of king salmon.
The north coast ocean ports continue to give up good numbers of crab and rockfish. Fishing out of Bodega Bay just couldn’t get any prettier or better according to Rick Powers, Skipper of the New Sea Angler. Limits of both quality dungeness crab and rockfish are the rule with great weather conditions last weekend. Rick was going south earlier in the week but switched it up to go above the river and was rewarded with limits of rockfish and a ling cod per rod. Ports to the south are reporting better ling cod fishing out at the Farralon Islands along with limits of crab. Sport crab season will slowly diminish as the commercial take will start to limit sport results.
With the promise of midweek rains, the sturgeon season will begin. Sturgeon are already being caught on the usually shrimp baits in San Pablo Bay. Local sturgeon legend, Keith Frasier, reports that several fish were landed over the weekend and that tides will remain excellent through Wednesday.
Local lakes have now “turned over.” Lake Sonoma proved to be very stubborn giving up only a handful of steelhead to local anglers over the weekend despite cool surface water temperatures. Glorious conditions should have had the fish up on top feeding on the shad but that was not the case, as not a single fish was seen on the surface feeding Sunday, despite 61 degree water temps.
For more Fishing information and/ or reports please contact Hunt Conrad at Prospect Mortgage, 431-9715.