Thursday’s opening of the inland river salmon season was expected to be tough fishing and it was as challenging as predicted.

Three guides on the Feather River, Raith Heryford of RH Guide Service and Kevin Brock and his fellow guide, all caught fish. Heryfod had limits for his three anglers and Brock had 13 salmon for 7 anglers on two boats. And those were the best scores on either the Feather or the Sacramento. By far.

All three were fishing near the Oroville Outlet at the Low Flow section.

“From what I could tell there were half the fish out there this year compared to last year,” Heryford said. “We were in a good spots. There were a lot of boats. More struggled than succeeded. By a lot.”

The Sacramento River had even fewer fish despite more traffic over a long stretch of river.
Guide Dave Jacobs launched from Woodson Bridge and had other guides working near Red Bluff and all came up skunked.

“It wasn’t the water temperature. It was 65 to 66 degrees and last year it was 63 to 64 degrees,” said Jacobs. “There is just no fish moving through. It’s just empty. There are 25 miles of river null and void of salmon.”

There were hundreds of boats from Ord Bend to Red Bluff and there was just one fish brought back to Red Bluff and four to Woodson Bridge, said Jacobs.