On the mid-Klamath, about seven miles northwest of Yreka, California, the Yurok Tribe and Karuk Tribe have started work on a large-scale habitat restoration project spanning 1.25 river miles and up to 45 acres downstream of the four lower dams removed in 2024.
The McConnell Bar project, announced in a joint tribal release on July 30, runs between the mouth of Humbug Creek and the Klamath’s confluence with Brushy Creek, near the Tree of Heaven campground and about 3.7 miles below the confluence with the Shasta River. Fly anglers and rafters know the stretch.
The project targets damage from two eras. Gold mining between 1910 and 1942 left the banks lined with tailing piles of softball- to bowling-ball-sized rock that stop native riparian vegetation from establishing, and left the segment unnaturally straight and shallow with almost no fish rearing or spawning habitat, per the tribes’ release. The July 2022 McKinney Fire burned more than 50,000 acres in its first three days, and torrential post-fire rains sent sedimented flows down Humbug Creek and other tributaries that killed tens of thousands of fish, including juvenile salmon and trout.
The work is anadromous-habitat restoration at scale. Crews will reshape the channel, reconnect the floodplain, remove mining tailings, and add wood features designed to scour fine sediments to the banks and create deep pools. Native trees and shrubs will go in for shade and terrestrial habitat, and fish will get better access to Humbug Creek, which according to the release, is a known salmon-bearing tributary. The design intends to double the site’s fish rearing capacity year-round and create cold pools where salmon and other fish can hold through summer heat.
The California Department of Fish and Wildlife and the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation are funding the work. Partners include local landowner and hospitality entrepreneur Lance Evans, the Mid-Klamath Watershed Council, The Watershed Research and Training Center, and the Klamath Indigenous Land Trust. Karuk Chairman Russell “Buster” Attebery framed the project as a template, saying the tribes hope projects like it will “serve as a model for future collaborative fish restoration projects” across the mainstem.
Fall trips planned through the McConnell Bar stretch will run into periodic delays and short closures. The Klamath National Forest and Butte Valley National Grassland has issued a corresponding advisory asking river users to check current conditions before launching and to follow posted signs at work zones. MidCurrent covered the broader Klamath recovery arc in June, when California Trout and The Conservation Angler launched their angler-science monitoring partnership on the same river.
