Rains filling up Smith with fish

River peaked Fri. morning

Kenny Berryhill, left, and John Strenk with a steelhead caught on the Smith River last week.Courtesy Mike Coopman Guide Service

After a dry fall, the last few days of rain lured fish into the Smith River in droves.

The amount of adult fish that swam upstream Wednesday alone (303) more than half the number of fish counted from Dec. 20 to 27 (582), according to the DIDSON sonar fish counter at the Fred Haight Drive boat launch.

The Smith peaked at about 10 a.m. Friday at a height of almost 23 feet and a flow of almost 60,000 cubic feet per second, according to the Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park gauge in Hiouchi.

The river is expected to drop back down to 12 feet at the Hiouchi gauge by noon today, making for perfect fishing, according to local guide Mike Coopman.

“I anticipate this thing to just be on fire once we can get back on it,” Coopman said Thursday about the Smith. “I anticipate that it’s going to be very crowded, but there will still be plenty of fish.”

Now’s the time to fish for steelhead trout, although salmon are also still running this late in the season due to the odd rain year.

The Rowdy Creek Fish Hatchery was still counting Chinook salmon swimming upstream  Thursday. Last year at this time, the salmon run was finished.

On top of spawning fish, the hatchery catches and releases wild fish swimming up Rowdy Creek for documentation.

The salmon counted at the hatchery this year, however, are less than 20 percent of the salmon counted overall last year.

The hatchery counted 27 steelhead on Thursday, raising this year’s count to 64. At this time last year, the hatchery had counted 155 steelhead.

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