Spring salmon season off to good start on Klamath

May 14, 2008

By Andy Martin

Crescent City Triplicate

Spring Chinook salmon have begun entering the lower Klamath River, making their way upstream into the Trinity River where they will return to the hatchery or eventually spawn early this fall.

While the chrome-bright salmon make their way through the portion of the Klamath in Del Norte County, anglers from throughout the West try their luck for what is undoubtedly one of the best-tasting and hardest fighting on any salmon.

"It's been picking up," reports veteran lower Klamath guide David Castellanos of Smith River , who has set up fish camp at Golden Bear RV Park for the season. "They were releasing lots of water from Iron Gate and Trinity dams and now they've stopped and the river has been dropping."

Castellanos, who also operates www.smithriverfishing.com, has been on the scene on the lower Klamath since the first fish of the season began showing up. Fishing usually continues to be good into July. Castellanos already has enjoyed a three-fish day.

Spring salmon, commonly known as springers, are prized because of their oily meat. The salmon enter a handful of rivers, including the Klamath, Rogue, Umpqua and Columbia , as snow begins to melt from headwater mountain ranges, and then hold in the upper stretches of those rivers until the fall to spawn. Only rivers that drain from mountains with large snow packs have springers. Because the fish don't spawn until the fall, and they don't eat once they return to fresh water, the spring-run salmon are as fat as footballs and live off their oils and fats until they spawn.

Springers quickly move through the lower sections of rivers before holding in the cool headwater pools for the summer. To catch them, anglers usually fish from jet boats, anchoring and waiting for the fish to come by,

"It's a fast-flowing river so you have to be tight to the edge," Castellanos says of fishing the Klamath. "I like to keep to four and a half feet of water."

The springers will migrate upstream in the slower water close to shore, following the inside bends and path of least resistance.

Spinners are the go-to lure for Klamath springers. Most guides and experienced anglers make their own, but a large selection also is available at Englund Marine in Crescent City .

Many anglers will use a wire spreader with a foot-long dropper and two-foot leader. Castellanos is very particular about his leader and dropper lengths. He uses a 15-foot dropper and 28-inch leader. He ties the spreader to his P Line mainline and uses a graphite rod from Rogue Rods to walk his rig downstream. The rods are then placed in the rod holders until a fish strikes.

Klamath springers are known to hammer a spinner and then take off full speed. Some fish, despite being relatively small compared to fall-run Chinook, have spooled anglers without even slowing down.

Anchor fishing for Klamath springers typically continues into mid-July. When water temperatures increase, anglers will begin trolling spinners in the estuary.

Outdoors writer Andy Martin, a former editor of Fishing & Hunting News, runs a halibut charter boat in the Gulf of Alaska during the summer and guides on America 's Wild Rivers Coast during the winter. His Web site is www.wildriversfishing.com.

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Source:  http://www.triplicate.com/news/story.cfm?story_no=8726