California has four separate runs of Chinook in one river system, named for the season they enter fresh water, and one of them is in the river for eight months of the year. No other state splits its salmon this finely.
Seasons, limits and licence rules are set by your state agency.
Each bar below spans January to December, with today marked, and draws the quoted sentence underneath it. Where an agency describes a run by season rather than by month, the card carries the sentence without a bar.
The abundant one, and the fish behind almost every Central Valley and coastal Chinook story.
Fall-run Chinook Salmon migrate upstream as adults from July through December and spawn from early October through late December.
A separate run that overlaps the tail of the fall fish and then spawns through the winter.
Late-fall-run Chinook Salmon migrate into the rivers from mid-October through December and spawn from January through mid-April.
Comes in early and then does nothing all summer, holding in the coldest water it can find until autumn. Butte, Deer and Mill creeks carry the last wild ones.
Spring-run Chinook Salmon enter the Sacramento River from late March through September.
Endangered, found nowhere else on earth, and the only salmon run in the world named for winter. The state tracks it under the Golden Gate.
Adult Sacramento River (SR) winter-run Chinook Salmon pass under the Golden Gate Bridge from November through May, and pass into the Sacramento River from December through early August.
On the short coastal streams the run cannot start until the winter surf and the river together break the sand bar across the mouth. Until that happens the fish wait outside.
Coho Salmon move upstream after heavy rains open the sand bars that can form at the mouths of many California coastal streams, but may enter larger rivers earlier.
California steelhead are almost all winter fish, moving on the same storms that open the coastal river mouths.
Winter-run Steelhead return from the ocean at age 4 or 5 years, and travel to their spawning grounds from November to April.
| River | Water temp | Flow | Measured |
|---|---|---|---|
| Klamath Rivernear Klamath | Loading | Loading | |
| Trinity Riverat Hoopa | Loading | Loading | |
| Trinity Riverat Douglas City | Loading | Loading | |
| Sacramento Riverat Freeport | Loading | Loading | |
| American Riverat Fair Oaks | Loading | Loading | |
| Russian Riverat Hacienda Bridge | Loading | Loading | |
| Eel Riverat Fort Seward | Loading | Loading | |
| Butte Creeknear Chico | Loading | Loading | |
| Deer Creeknear Vina | Loading | Loading | |
| Mill Creeknear Los Molinos | Loading | Loading |
Source: USGS Water Services (National Water Information System). Instantaneous values service. U.S. Geological Survey data are works of the United States Government and are in the public domain. Gauge list verified 2026-08-24.
On the north coast the Park Service gives a tighter window than the state does: in the Redwood parks the fish come back to the streams from November through February. In the Klamath and the Eel, the state puts coho spawning specifically in November and December.
Most of these fish spend the majority of their lives in the ocean, but during November through February, they return to the streams for spawning.
Fish passage counts are published by the programmes that run the counting stations, linked below with what each one reports.
No agency publishes a live or near live count on any California river covered here. The live readings above are river conditions, and the agency linked at the top of the page is the source for run reports.
Run windows on this page are quoted from the agency named beside each one. River conditions come from the U.S. Geological Survey and are readings, not forecasts and not fish counts. Fishing seasons, bag limits, gear rules and licence requirements for California are set by the agency linked here, and a run window is not an open season. For rules, see California Department of Fish and Wildlife. National picture: every state with a salmon or steelhead run →
Hero image: “Pair of Chinook salmon” — Dan Cook, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service — Public Domain