2020 Middle Klamath River and Lower Salmon River Juvenile Salmonid Out-migration Monitoring

The Karuk Tribe worked in cooperation with its partners including the Salmon River Restoration Council outmigrant trapping in the lower Salmon River and lower middle Klamath River near Orleans at Big Bar. The Salmon River trap is a 5 ft diameter trap typically fished 5 days per week where it was set on Monday and pulled on Fridays. The Big Bar trap is an 8 ft daimeter trap also operating Mondays through Fridays. Trapping at both sites began in March and ended in September.



The Karuk Tribe worked in cooperation with the US Fish and Wildlife Service at additional trapping sites located in the upper Klamath River near Kinsman Creek and near where the Klamath River crosses under Interstate highway 5 and downstream of Iron Gate Dam. Work at the Kinsman site included daily checks throughout the trapping season. The traps were set on Mondays and pulled on Fridays. Work included enumeration, measuring weights and length of all species trapped. Population estimates were conducted using marked fish from Iron Gate Hatchery. This river reach is the primary rearing reach for juvenile chinook and coho salmon spawning below Iron Gate Dam, but also the large population of juvenile fish emigrating from the Shasta River and other natal spawning tributaries. In recent years, droughts, low flows and fish disease are major limiting factors for juvenile salmonid production.

Project Benefit: The project will provide data to long term Chinook salmon production monitoring efforts that have been ongoing in the Klamath River for the past 25 years. The project will specifically benefit Chinook salmon production modeling efforts conducted by the Karuk Tribe and US Fish and Wildlife Service where model inputs are based on real out-migrant catch data and model outputs can be verified by real monitoring data. This project will provide information regarding listed species such SONCC Coho Salmon.