The California Department of Fish and Wildlife closed the spit fishery at the mouth of the Klamath River to recreational angling at 11:59 p.m. on Sept. 2, and the area will remain closed to fishing for the remainder of the 2026 season. The closure was triggered when anglers reached the spit area’s quota for adult fall-run Chinook salmon, calculated as 15 percent of the total Klamath River Basin recreational allocation of fish caught below the Highway 101 bridge.
The closed zone is defined as the waters within 100 yards of the channel through the sand spit that forms at the Klamath River mouth, downstream of the Highway 101 bridge near the town of Klamath. Other sections of the Klamath and Trinity rivers remain open under their own quotas and seasons; the fall Klamath River recreational season runs from Aug. 15 through Dec. 31 and is closed above the Interstate 5 bridge, while the Trinity River season runs from Sept. 1 through Dec. 31. The basin-wide fall Chinook quota adopted for 2026 stands at 3,248 adult salmon, split among the lower Klamath from the Highway 96 bridge to the mouth at 1,624 adults, the lower Klamath estuary below Highway 101 at 487 adults, the upper Klamath from the California-Oregon border to Highway 96 at 552 adults, and the lower Trinity downstream of the Denny Road bridge at 536 adults.
Anglers targeting salmon in the Klamath and Trinity rivers are required to possess a 2026 North Coast Salmon Report Card, and must begin filling out the card at the start of fishing and record every harvest and release as it occurs. Quota status for open and closed sections is updated on a state hotline at 800-564-6479. The 2026 season marks the first year in three in which anglers can harvest adult Chinook on the Klamath and Trinity, following statewide closures during the drought years, and the estuary reached roughly one-quarter of its quota within the first two weeks of the season before the spit closure was triggered near Labor Day.
The full Klamath River recreational rules and the state’s freshwater sport fishing regulations for 2026 are available through the department’s regulations portal, and the ocean salmon program maintains a separate Klamath Control Zone bounded roughly six nautical miles north and south of the river mouth and 12 nautical miles offshore. The estuary and lower river remain a central salmon fishery for Northern California, and quota-triggered spit closures at the mouth have become a routine tool used by state fisheries managers to keep harvest within limits set by joint federal and state stock assessments.
