Eel River mouth

Trolled and tossed a Little Cleo around for a few hours on Thursday and then a bit from the bank last night in the rain - saw one fish jump and no one seemed to be getting any action at all.  Saw a few seals.  It's pretty sad.  The Eel has been catch and release only for about 10 years now, and the fishery is in very poor shape.  I hope that in my lifetime the Eel can be helped enough to make a comeback, but it looks bleak...  I did talk to a friend in a powered drift boat who brought up a 5' sturgeon a few weeks back - that's a rarity for sure.  They'd snagged it in the back with a Little Cleo and thought they had a huge salmon until they saw it.  They got some photos and let it go.  I'm waiting on a promised photo glimpse... 

You are talking about salmon right? Its going to take decades if at all to recover. We cannot reverse the filling of of natal streams with sediment due to deforestation with just a C&R policy. Lack of trees means big sility run-offs that blow the waters out which is not good nor natural. Commercial fishing has ensured the dwindling population due to habitat loss was given a third good punch--perhaps a knockout. It is sad. But population and development are antithetical to good fishing especially if no one in power wields ti to protect the fish as is so often the case.

I thought the Eel still had a pretty good Steelhead run doesn't it? It's a bit early for Steelhead yet though. Or has teh Steelhead run suffered there as well?

All fisheries on the Eel have suffered.  The Eel used to be third to only the Sac and Klamath systems in numbers of returning anadromous fish.  Here's an anecdotal story that I heard on a video of old-timers from the Humboldt County Historical Society - they said, "Every year at Labor Day everyone would get their fish at Camp Weott (in the estuary area and meaning adult salmon)".  Now it's mid-October and you're lucky to see a fish roll...  The winter runs are still there, but hit hard as well.  Steelhead and Coho, which stay in the river for a year or more as juveniles, are very heavily impacted because low flows, hot water, lack of habitat, and the Sacramento Squawfish (Pike Minnow) have made the river inhospitable to "trout"/juvenile salmon and steelhead.  I watch up to 3 dozen large kings in a day spawning in a small creek in December each year, but that's in the State Park - one of very very few creeks that still have "intact" watersheds - NONE of them have never seen logging, and most are almost dead.  The river is so filled in, I don't see why they don't just dredge it out for the first 10 miles from the mouth - then at least we'd have an estuary as habitat...   

Hi Abking,

The Eel was actually my first experience fishing for kings in the river and that was in the early 80's. that's to bad the fishery  died out.

I was wondering do you live close to the Eel river? I'm just trying to gather some intel in that area,  since i try to make it to the Smith and Chetco every year for King. I also hear theres some good  fishing for sea-run cutthroats out of one of the lagoons/mouth of one of the rivers in the area would you have any info on that fishery.

Any info is appreciated thanks

Alex

Thats sad about the Eel.  I remember driving over it when I was a kid and it looked nasty.

Hey Abking! Thanks for the report, I mean to get up there in a couple of days on my way to the Smith. Sure, the runs aint what they used to be, but there are still fish to be caught. Last Fall I caught lots of Kings all the way up into Leggett, on the south fork. They were dark, but they were there! I also saw lots of carcasses while fishing for steelhead in january. Carcasses are a good sign! Also, did you know there's a hatchery upstream of Leggett?
Two years ago, after a significant early rain, enough water to open the closure, I found a large school of chromers just below the trestle bridge at the forks. It was almost a fish on every cast for three days in the mornings! Two years ago I also found cohos taking flies just below Fernbridge. So don't give up.
As for steelhead, they still run well. Last year was tough with all the water, it was always too high to fish, but the last couple of years I've done great, especially on the south fork. All the water should have helped the fish get up, I hope.
You ever fish the Smith estuary? I'm headed there soon to flyfish out of my pram. If you get lucky and time it right, the fishing is phenomenal!

Alex:  The Eel is hit and miss for fishing - it gets blown out quickly when the real rains start - right now it's closed due to low-flow, and it will stay that way until we get a rain of about 2 inches or more.  The lagoons (Humboldt Lagoons State Park) up past Trinidad and before Orick do have sea-run cutthroats, but I haven't fished for them for years.  I'll get you more info if I hear of anything, but, again, this will not go off until the real rains start.  Where I'm fishing the Eel now is the estuary below a certain point (Fulmor road) which is always open as it's tidewater.

Juan:  I wish I had time to go hit the Smith or Chetco - word is the fish are there and they're big.  I've never spent much time up that way.  Good luck!  I have heard there's a small hatchery upstream of Leggett, and the South Fork in general is healthier than the river as a whole, so that's great that you saw some carcasses and caught some fish.  I guess I just long for the days of old when all the creeks had fish and the river was a destination instead of an afterthought...   

There is a direct inverse correlation between the introduction and population boom of pikeminnows and the decline of the salmonids in the river.  Pikeminnows, which were introduced into the Eel network by a fisherman dumping his bait bucket in the 1970's, eat hundreds of thousands of smolts and juvenile fish each year.  If you're in the area during the summer, grab a mask and fins and jump in to see for yourself.  They can be found in any deep hole on the South Fork of the Eel.

DFG now has a derby on them during the summer, but they have also tried other measures like tossing explosives in the deep holes....without success.

No doubt the Pike Minnow is a major factor, but that doesn't reduce the serious effect man's irresponsible logging practices have had to prmote the situation. Pike Minnows wouldn't have thrived in the origianl fast flowing freestone rivers and streams--just like they exist but don't dominate in the San Joaquin, Upper Sacramento,  Truckee, or many other rivers and streams.

Unbridled greed by loggers, farmers, and developers taking water and clear cutting turned the Eel and its tributaries into low-flow sediment filled canals and shifted the habitat to favor the Pike Minnow over the Salmonids. Nature just found a species better adpated to what man turned the river into--evolution takes place in response to environmental changes--we jsut don't like how Nature reacted and evolved in response to the changes we wrought to the Eel.

You're right, SurfMarm...  and it sucks!  And the "Nature Bats Last" mantra doesn't really do anything for us right here, right now.  I guess if you look at life through the ultimately greedy model it's "oh well, the sun is going to burn out one day anyway..."  Here's one of my bumper sticker ideas in response to "TREES are America's RENEWABLE resource":  "GREED is America's INEXHAUSTABLE resource".  I think though, that if they dredged the lower river, which would obviously cost big bucks and probably fill in again, it would cause the river to carve out a channel again, and it would make a big difference quicker than most would think.  Boats used to go out of the ocean and up to Scotia, which is about 15-20 miles upstream of the mouth - now you couldn't yak that far without walking it over many riffles.

The only cool thing about Pike Minnows in the Eel River is that my daughter caught a few by herself last summer with a little kid's Spiderman trout rod!     It would've been so much better if there were enough "trout" or juvenile salmon to catch though...

The first time i fished the Eel was around 1976. My buddy got his first car, a Dodge station wagon, and off we go! We drove onto the river bar above Fernbridge and shone our headlights over the darkness of the river. We saw a fish roll in our lights! We then got stuck in the gravel. Oh well, we're here, we'll dig out tomorrow. So excited about the morning we didn't sleep much.
In the morning there is much traffic and bustle as fishermen arrive to fish. We crossed the river to fish on top of old boxcars. The river was low and clear. That hole was plugged with fresh fish. We hooked up and lost most of them on a huge redwood snag right in the middle of the hole.
I'll never forget that trip.

That's pathetic that it's gone downhill so much We used to fish salmon outside of Willits in the 70-80s, used to be great fishing

used to also fish steelhead on the Navarro and Mattole, what great places

I think the Navarro's not in such great shape anymore and I read something a few years back about the locals trying to rescusitate the Mattole by clearing out slash etc

Listen guys. Don't let the negative talk fool you--I am not throwing in the towel by any means! I just believe you have to take an honest assessment of your situation to its full extent before taking action and then build your attack plan. Got to secure the LZ and then gather the G2 on the AO. We need to do what we can and we cannot give up. Yeah it's dire and tough. Boo hoo. I ain't shrinking from the fight.

The Salmonids have no champions, cannot speak for themselves, and are fighting for their very existence. Abking is right--small steps like some dredging might give the fish a foothold. And nature is strong and adaptable and if it throws its weight behind that small effort who knows how it will end up? When I was climbing a 5.10 face, the tiniest of footholds meant the difference from a successful summit and a screaming leader fall. So it is in this situation. Every little foothold we can give the weary Salmoids on their return or on their birth can make a huge difference. Nature is strong and tough steeled by eons of evolution, a little help can bring a surprising resurgence in the Great Spirit in these fish. I wish I lived up there and could put in more effort. I'll help where I can.

Remember this, those tree-huggers, despite the extremists in their midst, are mostly with us on this and are reasonable about fishing. Don't alienate them--they want what we want and are our allies if we negotiate terms effectively.