The smith river is californias largest free-flowing river and provides a flagship fishing destination for thousands of anglers annually fishing for steelhead trout, resident rainbow trout, coastal…

The California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) received a $386,776 Formula Grant award from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) under the Sport Fish Restoration program (CFDA 15.605) for the period of July 1, 2025 through June 30, 2026. This award supports fisheries assessment and management activities on the Smith River in California, the state's largest free-flowing river and a significant recreational fishing destination. The project focuses on monitoring and evaluation of multiple salmonid species—including steelhead trout, resident rainbow trout, coastal cutthroat trout, and Chinook salmon—across seven distinct fishery regulation zones and 25 unique fisheries within the Smith River basin.

The primary deliverables under this grant include expansion of spawning ground surveys, estimation of annual Chinook salmon and steelhead trout escapement rates, and identification of critical juvenile rearing areas to inform habitat restoration priorities and future fisheries management decisions. These monitoring and assessment activities directly support compliance with National Marine Fisheries Service Endangered Species Act biological opinions regarding Southern Oregon Northern California Coast (SONCC) coho salmon, while enabling CDFW and co-managers to reduce uncertainty in fish stock assessments and make more informed decisions regarding both in-river fisheries management and ocean harvest rates.

The smith river is californias largest free-flowing river and provides a flagship fishing destination for thousands of anglers annually fishing for steelhead trout, resident rainbow trout, coastal cutthroat trout, and chinook salmon. Most of the basin is within the smith river national recreation area with dozens of developed river access points used for fishing and other recreation activities. There are a total of seven individual fishery regulation zones and 18 individual species zone-specific regulations resulting in 25 unique fisheries throughout the basin section 180 2023 california department of fish and wildlife (cdfw) regulations . Management of these in-river fisheries as well as the evaluation of ocean fisheries harvest rates relies upon information regarding the robustness of individual stocks and the freshwater habitats upon which they depend. The national marine fisheries services (nmfs) endangered species act (ESA) section 7(a)(2) current biological opinion anticipates incidental take of ESA-listed southern oregon northern california coast (soncc) coho salmon to occur each year in salmon fisheries. Under the proposed action, the pacific fisheries management council shall constrain total exploitation rate of soncc coho at 15.0 percent for each of the individual populations within the evolutionarily significant unit (ESU) effectively limiting fisheries for other species. Nmfs, in collaboration with the council, indicates states should continue to investigate increases in monitoring including expansion of spawning ground surveys to aid the comanagers ability to assess impacts to wild soncc coho salmon, reducing some of the uncertainty reflected in the risk assessment. Estimating annual chinook salmon and steelhead trout escapement and identifying critical areas for juvenile rearing will aid in defining future salmonid habitat restoration priorities and fisheries management decisions. Fisheries assessment and management recommendations produced in technical reports associated with this sport fish restoration act (sfra) project are the primary catalyst for identifying restoration actions targeted at increasing sportfish population numbers and evaluating fisheries management. An effective means to estimate spawning escapement in larger river systems is through the use of sound navigation and ranging (sonar) technology. In order to estimate spawning escapement of anadromous salmonid species in the smith river basin using sonar, two key study components are needed. The first component is operation of the sonar unit to enumerate fish as they migrate upstream. The second component partitions this count into unique species by estimating the species composition of fish using auxiliary sampling techniques. The juvenile snorkel surveys will investigate how populations are distributed within the basin. Information regarding the distribution and abundance of salmonid species rearing within the basin is necessary to evaluate both in-river fisheries associated with cdfw heritage trout waters and trends in salmonid species distribution and occupancy patterns throughout the basin over time. The spawning ground survey component of this proposal is targeted at evaluation of chinook salmon, coho salmon and steelhead sub-populations in mill creek within the smith river. Because populations of coho salmon are small relative to chinook salmon and steelhead, sonar counts partitioned to species are expected to be imprecise for coho salmon. Mill creek is known to support the majority of spawning coho salmon adults in the smith river. We therefore take a more appropriate, spawning ground survey approach to monitoring trends for this stock in the mill creek sub-basin.