Current Fishing Report

I spend a couple hours fishing for myself today on the Lower Sac.  I cruised around in my jet boat to some prime riffles and the fishing was really good.  I landed a 3 pound wild rainbow on my 4wt spey rod and hooked a 16 rainbow on a grasshopper dry.  The swing and dry fly program is hard to beat on the Lower Sac.  Come on up and give it a try!

Well the B.O.R. have finally come to there senses and have agreed to start releasing water out of Lewiston Lake to help cool the waters of the Lower Klamath and Trinity rivers in an attempt to prevent another fish kill like the one they orchestrated in 2002 ! http://www.usbr.gov/newsroom/newsrelease/detail.cfm?RecordID=47771 

Gino, Leslie Ajari and myself just finished up our Spey Camp on the Lower Klamath River.  Most of the guests who joined us made sure to tell us that it was one of the most enjoyable angling trips they have ever experienced.  Speaking for the crew, it was definitely one of my favorite fishing trips that I have been a part of, and its right here in our backyard. We set up a first class camp on a bluff overlooking the two beautiful swing runs that we have for our home water.  We are surrounded by tree lined mountains and wildlife all around us.  The weather was absolutely amazing for camping.  Leslie provided superb dinners that included steak, pork tenderloin, and chicken along with excellent veggies and side dishes.  We also had a BBQ lunch each day after our morning session, and you have the option to fish the home water or just relax until the evening fishing session.  Gino ran us to prime spots on the river that he knows as good as anyone in the business, and provided stellar casting instruction and tied some flies in the evening that hooked both dime bright steelhead and adult salmon.  I got to work closely with each guest on their speycasting skills, and was pleased with everyones development.  Another bonus of the trip is that everyone hooked multiple dime bright steelhead and even landed some giant salmon on small spey rods.  Epic. If you want to experience elite casting instruction, superb food, and a first class camping and angling experience, join us next year.  Gino, Leslie and I will be back next August, and will be offering 5 spey camps this time.  Specific dates will be available soon.  Everyone that came this year wants to rebook, so get a hold of myself, Gino, or Andrew soon to reserve your spot on one of the coolest new steelhead trips on the West Coast.  

Your accommodation

Dinner and drinks before relaxing by the fire

Gino, Michael Shaw, and Leslie enjoying a moment

I even got to fish a little on my last day

Michael and his amazing salmon

Wolf was on fire. I never saw someone hook so many steelhead in a 3 day period

we had lots of double and triple hookups

Andy with a chromer

Wolf hooked the most adult steelhead for the camp...I lost count

Andy had a very productive first ever steelhead trip

Our community on the river

Spey Camp is instruction based

Rob had the magic fly for the whole camp, a keen fly tier

Our chef and upcoming Confluence guide Leslie Ajari

Your home on the river

The Lower Klamath has amazing swing water

I had the pleasure of guiding some great clients on the Bollibokka Club on the McCloud River today.  The river is back to normal in terms of clarity.  The ash flow is over and the water is clear - perhaps too clear!  We fished a lot of great pocket water today.  My experience on the Bollibokka is that the pocket water is much more productive than the really obvious buckets, although the fish in the pocket water are smaller.  We did best in the morning hours and productive flies included psycho princes in yellow, brown rubber legs, and red copper johns.  We landed fish up to 18 in the morning.  In the afternoon we did a lot of hopper-dropper fishing.  A few fish ate the hopper, and a lot of small and medium-sized fish ate the dropper.

Scott with a rainbow caught on a red copper john

John caught a lot of fish today

Tony playing a fish

Tony with his big fish of the day

Lots of great pocket water on the Bollibokka

Some of our clients just fished with guides Steve Eadie and Jim Andras on the Upper Rogue the last two days.  Steve & Jim both said the fishing was really good.  Mostly adult steelhead plus some smaller fish.

Molly with a nice one

Dave with a wild steelhead

Molly always catches the most fish

Looking good Jake

I fished up in Redding today with clients Steve & Jim.  We used the jet boat as a taxi-cab, accessing several prime wading spots.  Jim did really well fishing nymphs without an indicator.  The big fish got away, but he landed a nice 16 rainbow in our first spot.  Steve had some action on his spey rod, too.

No indicator necessary for this fish

The view through the bimini top

Steve swinging a nice run

I spent a very enjoyable day on the Lower Sac today with clients Steve and Jim.  These guys like to swing flies, so we used the jet boat instead of the drift boat.  The jet boat is a great option on wading trips because we can go straight to the best spots for the type of fishing we want to do.  We spent all day swinging flies for trout with spey rods and single-hand rods.  We caught fish in every spot we tried.  We landed a lot of small and medium fish today and broke off a big fish.  We saw a few salmon fishermen, but had the run of the place in terms of fly fishing.  Soft hackles were the ticket.

The ultimate taxi-cab

The workbench

Shade is nice

Steve with a fish on

I will be doing a Tailgate Talk at the California Fly Shop in San Carlos tomorrow from 10:30am to 2pm.  My topic will be the rivers around Redding, including but not limited to the Lower Sac, Pit, McCloud, Hat Creek, Battle Creek, and Fall River.  I'll be discussing access points, times to go, fly & gear selection, and much more!  Stop by the shop - it would be great to see you there.

We had another good day on the Lower Sac today.  We floated from Anderson to the Barge Hole.  We only saw one drift boat and a few salmon boats out today.  We had good action in the morning and then it was a little slow after lunch.  We finished strong, though.  Our best flies were tan birds nests and copper johns size 14 and small brown mayfly nymphs.

I just returned from a quick trip to our Spey Camp on the Klamath River.  Gino, Dax, and Leslie have set up a great camp.  We have safari-style tents for the guests and a large shaded cooking and eating area.  Thanks to Leslie Ajari, the food has been wonderful.  But enough about the camp - the fishing has been good!  Everyone in our first group has landed adult steelhead and multiple half-pounders.  There is good fishing in our camp water, and every day Gino shuttles our guests around to different parts of the river.  I got to help release a nice adult steelhead today - that was the first one in my hands since April!  Our guests have also hooked and almost landed some fresh King salmon.  When I left on the 2nd full day of the first session, all of the guests were very pleased with how their spey casting was progressing.

Dax lending a hand with a big fresh salmon

The view of the river from camp

Gino and his trusty jet boat Elvis

Safari tents

Yes there are bears

This fly worked.

Wolf releasing a nice steelie

I had a fun day on the Lower Sac today with father/son team Matt and Adam.  Adam caught his first fish in twenty years and then caught a bunch more!  Fishing was pretty good throughout the day on a variety of nymphs.  The river dropped down to 7,600 cfs today.  We only saw one other drift boat.

I spent the last three days on the Lower Klamath and the Steelhead have arrived in mass. Early indications are looking GREAT for this season on the Klamath and Trinity with hundreds if not thousands of Steelhead currently staging in the Lower Klamath. I only rated the fishing as Good right now, not Great because of the current conditions, IE. water temps, and not the actual fishing. Currently the Steelhead are stacked in one area which tends to lead to very crowded fishing and snagging ! I am very excited about angling on the Lower Klamath as the water temps start to drop and the fish spread out and start moving up river. I am currently booking the Lower Klamath for mid September and October and my schedule has started to fill. If swinging a spey rod on classic Steelhead runs for Ocean Fresh Steelhead interest you then get off the fence and book a trip.Most of the water I fish on the Lower Klamath is within 20 miles of the Ocean !

Chomer !!!

My diggs on the Klamath

Fall River fished tough for us today.  We had some good sessions with both nymphs and dries, but the fish generally seemed a bit disinterested.  The highlight of the day was getting some grabs on a floating water boatman imitation.  We hooked a couple of really nice fish that broke us off in the weeds. We were surrounded by three separate forest fires that started in the last two days.  One is to the east near Day, over the ridge to the east of Fall River valley.  Another is in the hills just south of Fall River Mills.  The third is between Burney and Old Station, burning down out of the Thousand Lakes Wilderness.  Highway 89 was closed today in between Burney and Old Station.

Fishing at the gates of Mordor

I had the pleasure of guiding Father and Son team, Deke & Derek from Portola Valley today on the Fall River. The fishing was a bit slow but we had the whole river system mostly to ourselves, the whether was beautiful and the scenery stunning as always ! Highlight  of the day was Deke  spotting a Moma Black Bear 50' away on a remote levy with two cubs in tow, Pretty Cool Stuff !Fish where landed, stories and jokes told, good time's had by all ! Get out there and have some Fun ! 

The Lower Sac was pretty slow for us today.  We saw very little bug activity and the fish just didn't seem very interested.  My clients Mel & Ron managed to land a handful of rainbows, though.  Our best action was from 1pm to 3pm and the best flies were small brown mayfly nymphs.

Confluence Outfitters focuses on instruction based guiding.  We also do schools, which our staff has many years of experience throughout our careers.  I just finished up a fantastic women's school last week, and we are wrapping up the guide school this week. We have two spots left for our Klamath Spey Camp, where we will be teaching intricate spey casting and steelhead angling skills at the highest level.  We don't teach our schools in parking lots, truck trout ponds, or online.  We do it on the water in real life angling situations, with actual wild trout and steelhead!  

Leslie and Peter speycasting on the Pit

Mike Kennedy hooked up on one of his many big fish on the Fall

Fall River trout are spectacular

Gloria enjoying a beautiful run on a freestone river

Jess getting ready for the next spot

Leslie Ajari hooked up on a dry

Praying Mantis hatch has been epic

Mega cool release shot by Bob Dahlberg

I took guide school students Leslie Ajari and Peter Thompson to the Lower Sac today.  We had a great day of fishing and a really fun day of rowing.  Leslie & Peter did really well on the oars for their first day of rowing.  They even put me on some nice fish!  The nymphing was pretty good, but the highlight of the day was the dry fly fishing.  Leslie landed an 18 rainbow on a dry and Peter rose quite a few fish.  The fish are looking up for caddis in some of the shallow riffles now.

Peter got this one on a rubberlegs

My big fish of the day

Guide School 2014, day 5: We spent the afternoon working on freestone techniques on the Pit River.  Once we got away from the fly eating trees, the river fished incredibly well.  Students Leslie and Peter hooked and landed a lot of nice wild rainbows up to 18 today.  Most of our fish came on nymphs under indicators, but we also had fun with a hopper-dropper rig.  Our best action was in the afternoon.  The best fishing was in the fast water.

Peter with a nice one

Leslie with a big fish on the line

One of many quality rainbows today

Leslie's big fish of the day

Peter with a fish on

I did my last official evening hex trip of the season tonight with clients Bill and John and it was a hoot!  The hatch is still fairly thick - not a ton of bugs, but enough to get the fish interested.  We fished some old-school hex paraduns tonight and the fish took notice.  Bill and John both had numerous grabs and we finished the night with John landing a nice 18 rainbow. Daytime fishing was good today, too.  We did a split day, fishing from 8:30 to 2:30 and then taking a break before the hex trip.  We caught fish every spot we tried.  Nymphs on sinking lines and under indicators were the ticket for us today. 

We still have 2 spots left for the August 14-17 Spey Camp with Gino and Dax.  Check www.speycamp.com for more info.