A population of anadromous sockeye salmon (Oncorhynchus nerka) may have occurred historically above Iron Gate Dam.
Parties coming in from Keno state that the run of salmon in the Klamath River this year is the heaviest it has [sic] ever known. There are millions of the fish below the falls near Keno, and it is said that a man with a gaff could easily land a hundred of the salmon in an hour, in fact they could be caught as fast as a man could pull them in…There is a natural rock dam across the river below Keno, which it [sic] is almost impossible for the fish to get over. In their effort to do so thousands of fine salmon are so bruised and spotted by the rocks that they become worthless. There is no spawning ground until they reach the Upper Lake as the river at this point is very swift and rocky. —Front page article titled: “Millions of Salmon—Cannot Reach Lake on Account Rocks (sic) in River at Keno” Klamath Falls Evening Herald (24 September 1908)
Sockeye Salmon— There is some evidence that a run of sockeye salmon may have occurred in the Klamath River above the current location of Iron Gate Dam. The southernmost distribution of sockeye (Oncorhynchus nerka) in North America is recorded as the Klamath River (Jordan and Evermann 1896; Scott and Crossman 1973). Cobb (1930) reported that 20 sockeye were taken in the Klamath River in the autumn of 1915. Sockeye salmon require a lake for rearing. The only potential lake rearing habitat in the Klamath River system accessible to anadromous fish would have been Upper Klamath Lake, Lower Klamath Lake, or Buck Lake (in the upper reaches of Spencer Creek before being drained, Figure 1).
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Eulachon were never in the Kalamath River. This specific fish was present in the lower Columbia/Cowlitz and all tributaries open to the ocean north to Alaska.
Eulachon | NOAA Fisheries https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/species/eulachon