The Smith river has been steadily dropping over the past two days after a brief rise and fall on Tuesday and Wednesday. Kenny Armstrong reports that guides on Wednesday 11-18 landed 1 to 5 fish per boat of mostly big bright salmon in the 20 to 30+ pound class. Here on Thursday evening the river has dropped back to 8 feet on the Jed Park gauge  but moderate to heavy ( 1 to 3 inches) is forecasted on Friday. Once the front pushes through and the river begins to drop we will likely see the last "big blast" of chromers push in and up through the system this weekend and early next week. Hit the Smith when it's dropping over the next week to ten days and you should be rewarded with a late season trophy and if you have salmon in the freezer at home think about releasing that brood stock fish to seed future runs. The salmon season will wind down quickly over the next week and steelies should start to push in during the first week of December.

 The rains have returned to the North Coast and rivers are back on the rise. This is good news for salmon anglers but one needs to pick a window as the season will be winding down soon. For the 24 hours ending on Tuesday 11-17 at 5:PM Gasquet has seen 2.24" of rain and the Smith river is on the rise. The river has jumped from about 6.5 feet this morning to 10.3 at Jed Smith state park this afternoon. Light showers are expected overnight and it looks like Wednesday and most especially Thursday looks to be very promising for salmon anglers. Another round of moderate to heavy rain is expected on Friday and while the river may blow up too big to fish this weekend the early part of next week could again be one of those prime times to be on the river. Over the past few days the action has been slow due to the ultra clear and low flows but things should heat up during those windows that the river drops and is between 9 and 12 feet.
For the balance of the North Coast 24 hours rainfall totals were concentrated along the coast and totals inland and to the south were much lighter. Arcata (Mad river) saw .98, Fort Seward on the main stem Eel .48 and Honeydew over on the Mattole watershed saw 1.12”. The Trinity river and upper Klamath areas have seen light rain with totals ranging from .20 to .36” and only .04 was reported at Venado (west of Healdsburg) on the Russian river. Rain is just what our ever shrinking numbers of salmon need to successfully spawn and give us some hope for any future.  

Kenny Armstrong checked in with a good report on Thursday 11-12. He worked the Forks to the Outhouse or if you don't know that section, it's a drifted the starts above and ends in the old growth redwoods of Jed Smith state park. This is one of the most scenic drifts available in Northern California. Kenny had a group of three on board who hooked five fish and landed three two dark jacks and one big Mill Creek bound male that was in the low 50 pound class and still very bright. All three fish were released and my hat goes off to those on board for looking out for the Smith river brood stock. Kenny said the river is low and clear and they got all their action on back bounced roe. They did work kwikfish but Kenny says the river is just too clear to get the plugs in front of them before they spook. Fly anglers working the lower Park from prams are alos scoring a few fish. These locals know this fishery and do quite well and also release the majority of their fish. The forecast calls for showers tonight but talking with Kenny he says it doesn't look to happen. He is going to fish again on Friday but won't be offering trips until they see some rain and conditions improve. On the next rise we should see the last big push of salmon move up and the season will wind down after Thanksgiving. Over the past three years we have seen some good early steelie action on the Smith and Kenny will be targeting metalheads in December.

 Kenny Armstrong will be running Smith river fall salmon trips through November. 707 498-4087