Under 300 cfs, the river is closed
From September 1 through April 30, the Russian River main stem below the East Branch, along with Laguna de Santa Rosa and Santa Rosa Creek, is under CDFW's low-flow rule. The minimum is 300 cfs at the gauge on the main stem near Guerneville, which is USGS 11467000 at Hacienda Bridge, the same gauge this page shows. When flows are predicted to fall below that number the river closes to all fishing. CDFW updates the status for Sonoma and the other north coast counties on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, and posts it on its Low-Flow page.
On September 24, 2026 Hacienda Bridge read 106 cfs, and King's Sport and Tackle in Guerneville had already posted that the river closed on September 1 for low flow. Monthly means since 2010 show why this is normal: about 120 cfs in September and 300 in October, then 750 in November and 3,060 in December. The 300 to 3,000 cfs band on this page runs from the legal minimum to roughly the December mean. Because the status is recalculated three times a week from predicted flow, a river that was open on Monday can be closed by Wednesday, so check before every trip.
Barbless, and only clipped fish
CDFW's 2026 booklet keeps the main stem below the East Branch confluence open all year, subject to the low-flow rule. From April 1 through October 31 only artificial lures with barbless hooks are allowed; from November 1 through March 31 bait is legal, but hooks must still be barbless. The limit is 2 hatchery trout or hatchery steelhead a day and 4 in possession. Hatchery fish are marked by a healed adipose fin clip, and every unclipped steelhead, and every salmon, goes back. A Steelhead Report Card is required to fish for steelhead.
Some water is closed all year: the main stem above the East Branch and every tributary of the Russian, the river within 250 feet of the Healdsburg Memorial Dam, and the Russian River State Marine Recreational Management Area at the mouth.
Where the keepers come from
Clipped steelhead come from Warm Springs Hatchery, also called Don Clausen Fish Hatchery, below Lake Sonoma at the Warm Springs Dam. It produces coho and steelhead for the Russian drainage. Its fish ladder opens by mid-October, and it traps between 3,000 and 5,000 steelhead a year. It is 11 miles west of Highway 101 at Healdsburg on Dry Creek Road, and the Army Corps runs a visitor center there. Dry Creek carries Lake Sonoma's releases down to the Russian; Coyote Valley Dam, finished in 1959, holds Lake Mendocino on the East Fork upstream. The Russian is the largest river in the Central California Coast steelhead population, and genetic work has found its wild steelhead to be native stock, even after about 30 million hatchery trout were planted between 1911 and 1925.
King's says steelhead guides generally work December through March only, and will refer you to one.
Healdsburg down to Jenner
Below Healdsburg the river bends past the Healdsburg Memorial Bridge and the Highway 101 crossing, turns west under the Wohler Bridge, and picks up Mark West Creek north of Forestville. State Route 116 follows it through Guerneville, Guernewood Park and Monte Rio. Austin Creek enters before Duncans Mills, and Highway 1 crosses just above the mouth between Jenner and Goat Rock Beach. King's Sport and Tackle in downtown Guerneville, open for more than 70 years, rents canoes for the Forestville to Guerneville float and basic rods at $15 a day, with no tackle included, so bring your own barbless lures.
Summer belongs to bass
When the steelhead are gone, King's says summer fishing on the Russian is mostly smallmouth and largemouth bass, and a smallmouth guide works from late spring until late summer. The low-flow rule does not apply from May through August, so summer fishing runs under the permanent rules alone, including the barbless, artificial-lure requirement from April 1 through October 31. The river also holds coho and Chinook, both of which must be released; biologists estimated that more than 190 adult coho returned in 2011, starting with early storms in October and peaking in December. The river also has a fish of its own, the Russian River tule perch, a freshwater surfperch; surveys have found it missing from the East Fork below Coyote Valley Dam, where it once lived.