Current Fishing Report

The fishing has been pretty good on the Rogue River this week. The weather has been great with cold mornings and warm afternoons. It looks like were going to get some much needed rain this weekend. This rain should move the fish around and fishing should turn on even more!

The conditions continue to be low and clear with no rain on the horizon. Despite that Steelhead continue to trickle into the system and anglers working hard manage to have multiple opportunities during the day with a fish or two landed.

Bruce's big wild buck

Bobs Halloween Hatchery Steelhead

I just finished up two good days on the Trinity River.  Randy and I guided a group of 4 from the San Diego area.  Everyone on the trip landed at least one adult steelhead.  My guys today landed 4 steelhead 4-5lbs and a nice fresh salmon about 12lbs.  Toward the end of the day we saw a lot of salmon and steelhead making their way upriver.  They were knifing through the shallow riffles and making big wakes as they cruised through the tailouts.  Pretty neat to watch.

Greg with a healthy buck

George with a wild one

John landed 2 nice fish today

Steelhead continue to filter into the Trinity as do the anglers, boat and bank traffic have picked up considerably in the JC area this past week. I guided the lower river Friday and Saturday, both days we saw pods of Steelhead on the move, we had good action on 1/2 pounders to 16 with a few missed opportunities on larger Steelhead. We mixed the days up with a combination of swing fishing and fishing nymphs and eggs under an indicator and we were successful with both !Tom hooked and landed a nice Chinook about 10lbs. on a swung fly, the fish crushed a size 8 traditional steelhead pattern. We are still in dyer need of rain, the fishing could break wide open with a rise in the river, keep your fingers crossed ! 

Today was a pillage-fest on the Lower Sac.  Great weather, tons of hook ups, and even some steelhead in the mix.  It was all about egg patterns today.  Check out Brad's steelie.

Joe with one of many nice fish

Brad with his steelie

The Lower Klamath is a Beautiful place to be this time of year. The main run of salmon has already pushed through and so have all the salmon anglers, the river is left to the hard core steelhead angler willing to put in the time and effort for the big tug.I guided father and son , Jim and Bob from the bay area over the weekend. The fishing was good, we hooked and landed multiple chrome steelhead to 4lbs. and a jack salmon, big steelhead eluded us but there were a few caught over the weekend.The Lower Klamath is a hard place to beat this time of year, fresh bright steelhead, plenty of elbow room and classic swing water well suited for the spey rod.

Fishing was good today on the Lower Sac.  There are a lot of boats out, but there are plenty of fish to catch!  We hooked into a couple of really big rainbows today that did not make it to the net.  Rod from Mendocino and son Eric from New Hampshire had a good day, landing wild rainbows up to 18.  We caught some smaller trout on nymphs, but all of our big fish were on eggs.

Eric with a nice one

Low and Clear !The release out of Lewiston Lake into the Trinity river has been lowered to it's winter flow of 300 CFS till April 2014 and since we haven't had any significant rain since late September to get the tributaries running the Trinity is running Very Low!Boat traffic in the JC and Douglas City area hasn't been to bad but there are allot of bank anglers out, especially in the mid river from Big Flat to Cedar Flat.As for the fishing I would rate it fair, there are Steelhead around but with the skinny conditions and moderate fishing pressure fishing is a little tough. We'll have to wait to see if we have as large of a run as last year, there doesn't seem to be as many Salmon around as last year if that's an indicator.I guided Brady from San Francisco, who in 3 short years has become quite the Spey aficionado. We floated two different drifts, one middle river and one lower river, we saw Steelhead, hooked Steelhead but were unable to bring any to hand. That's the beauty of early Steelhead, there HOT!, and not easily landed.

The weather and the Steelhead fishing is good right now on the Rogue River. Several pulls on the swing flys with the long rod but couldn't seal the deal. George caught this one on a dead drifted nymph. It looks like the weather is going to continue to be nice through the weekend, nice.

Another windy day on the Lower Sac.  The river fished fairly well for us.  We had all of our luck on egg patterns.  There were some spots where the hook-ups came fast and furious as we floated through the salmon redds.  We landed fish up to 19 today.

Today was a pretty classic day of steelheading.  By 4pm we were fishless and my clients Chris and Scott were pretty desensitized by 7 hours of unproductive bobber fishing.  Then we hooked 7 fish in the next hour.  Chris and Scott, novice fly fishers, learned about the various ways to lose a steelhead.  They both finished the day with success - a steelhead in the net. At the suggestion of the staff at La Grange in Weaverville, we bonked one of the hatchery fish and took it to the restaurant.  Check out the photo of Chris with his steelhead prepared four different ways!  The guys said it was delicious.

Chris with his catch prepared by La Grange in Weaverville

We fought with the wind today on the Lower Sac.  It blew out of the north 20mph all day long.  It made casting very difficult, but the flip side was that there were hardly any other boats on the river.  Our morning was a little rough, but fishing picked up quite a bit in the afternoon.  The egg grab was pretty hot from 2-4pm, with fish keying on orange and pink colored egg patterns.  Our biggest fish today were in the 18-19 range and there were quite a few that size.

I fished with the Cooks brothers the last few days on the lower Sacramento River with great success. Trout averaging in size around 17. We even landed a small Seeelhead outside one of the creek inlets. This egg grab should continue throughout October so try to make it up to the Redding area for some great trout fishing!

Just returned from an 8 day stint on the Lower Klamath, the conditions ranged from unseasonably high and off color to the typical 3800 cfs flows for this time of year. The high flows of the last storm, as they do,  sucked up the fish that were hanging in the lower river. With that said everyone had a shot or multiple shots at adult Steelhead each day. As the river dropped into shape we started seeing pulses of fresh fish entering every day, and the fishing improved. Currently the conditions and fishing on the Lower Klamath are excellent, this is a perfect Spey / Swing destination this time of year, not a lot boat traffic, fresh steelhead, perfect swing runs and beautiful scenery !  

The rubberlegs was the key this afternoon on the Pit.  We spend time on various parts of  Fall River today but our afternoon on the Pit River was the best.  In under two hours, my client Chuck from Davis landed 5 really nice rainbows.  The biggest was 18 and well over 2 pounds.

I had a great time on Fall River today guiding long-time clients Dick and Chuck.  We had some outstanding dry fly fishing until about 2:30pm when the wind came up.  Dick and Chuck landed matching 19 rainbows on dry flies.  Most of the fish were really fat and healthy, too.  In the afternoon we had a nymphing pillage-fest with many fish from 16-19 in the net. There is a good callibaetis hatch right now.  There are some smaller mayflies too.  The river is fishing really well!

On a dry fly

On a dry fly

We had great fishing today on egg patterns.  Salmon are spawning in all of their usual spots as far down as the Sac RV Park.  Below there I didn't see many redds.  Throughout the next few weeks we will see more fish spawning further down river.  The trout are eating eggs to the exclusion of almost anything else.  We hooked several 20+ inch fish today.  Our best one in the net was a 19 rainbow.  We also had good dry fly fishing in the afternoon, landing fish up to 16 on dries.

We had a really nice day on the Trinity River today.  My clients Hossein and Gordon both landed wild steelhead on their spey rods.  The weather was great and the fish were chasing the fly on the swing.  Pretty fun!

Hossein chased this one through a rapid

Gordon's fish ate an egg-sucking leech

I had the pleasure to guide Janice and Sally from the Happy Hookers ladies fly fishing club last week. Lady luck played out with the weather, perfect conditions with sunny skies and light winds. The fishing was again great with rainbow trout in the 16-20 inch range.  

My mega BC steelhead journey has finally come to an end.  Fall and clouds finally arrived, which provided epic dry fly fishing my last 3 days there with steelhead buddies Darcy Bacha and Eric Jackson.  We hooked over a dozen fish each day primarily on drys, which is ridiculous.  We went skunk 4 days prior to that, so we were certainly due.  That is steelhead fishing...rewards only come to those that are dedicated.  Rain is still badly needed for the smaller rivers to become fishable.   Special thanks to all my friends up there who helped to make my trip truly epic.  You know who you are, and cant wait to see you next year for an even longer period of time.   My hosted trip to Z Boat will most likely be the 2nd week of September, and looking at the following week at another location.  Check our website soon for details. I head to the Ronde now until mid November.  I'll be on the Trinity for almost a month after that so book it while you can.  Should be a great year there...