Current Fishing Report

A couple of our clients fished the Rogue River the last 3 days with superb local guide Steve Eadie.  They did some nymphing and some swinging and landed multiple fish each day.  The icing on the cake was a 10-12 lb steelie that Jon swung up after 10 casts, never having fished a spey rod before!

Jon swung this one up on a spey rod

Another trip to BC is in the books.  I was up there for 5 weeks doing my annual hosted trip and exploration.  Amazing experience, as always.  I will be putting two hosted trips together for next year.  Please contact me for details. Heading to the Grand Ronde tomorrow.  I have two spots left available for my last multi day wilderness float on the lower river, one of the coolest steelhead experiences in the lower 48. Then I will head to the Trinity in early November.   

Darcy Bacha with a superb dry fly steelhead, he only fishes the dry fly. epic

Dean Bell with another mega BC steelie

Just another perfect BC swing run

April Vokey's film crew, I will be appearing on an episode of her new TV show

Master angler and guide for my NZ trip, Dean Bell

A good way to explore BC

Giant BC steelhead eat dry flies pretty good

I had a recent cancelation of three prime days in late October, Oct 28th-30th, this is prime time for both the Trinity and Lower Klamath. Should have plenty of Steelhead around on the Trinity and on those dates water and air temps warm enough to swing them up! For those of you out there wondering whether there are going to be any Steelhead on the Trinity because of the ongoing drought and associated low water, I'm here to put those fears to rest, there have been plenty of Steelhead pushing through the Lower Klamath and a good deal of them are headed to the Trinity. Those fish are going to run up river whether it rains or not, The Trinity is a tail water fishery and the minimum flow out of Lewiston Lake starting Oct 15th is 350 CFS and will remain that way through the winter. At these flows Steelhead have and will make it past Greys and Burnt Ranch falls all the way up to Lewiston. We need rain but the Steelhead are coming regardless !!!     

Lower Klamath Beauty !

There was a large mud flow on Mt. Shasta starting Saturday around 3pm.  For more details, follow this link: http://inciweb.nwcg.gov/incident/article/4120/24594/ The forest service reported yesterday:As of this morning, the Forest Service reports that sediment from Mud Creek has reached Lake McCloud and the lower McCloud River. Sediments from Mud Creek will likely impact water quality and fishing by creating turbid conditions in the River below Lake McCloud for the next several weeks. 

The fishing over the past weekend on the McCloud, Hat Creek and Burney Creek were solid. The McCloud at Bollibokka was producing a majority of fish on a dry dropper early in the day, lots of action mid-day nymphing pocket water, and then quite a few fish on dries later in the evening. Brothers' Peter and David had a great day of fishing. The October Caddis have not started to come off yet in numbers, however we did catch a chunky rainbow on a OC nymph. Unfortunatley, with Mud Creek blowing out, fishing will be touch and go until the water clears up.  Had a father-son duo and their family friend fishing Burney Creek and Hat Creek on Saturday. Koji, JT and Rick all hooked into fish. In the morning we fished above the falls with an October caddis dry and assorted nymph rigs. Koji wrangled in 4 fish within the first hour; even a few on the October caddis dry! In the early afternoon and evening we had the Powerhouse 2 riffle on Hat Creek all to ourselves; pretty rare, considering this spot is famous for shoulder to shoulder fishing.  Rick got a beautiful wild 'bow and 15 year old Santa Cruz surfer JT hooked into his first fish on a fly rod fishing a dry. It was an epic day. 

Koji's first fish of the day on a dry fly

Way to go Rick!

Yesterday was a tough act to follow, but we pulled it off again today.  We started slow, with a half hour of unproductive streamer fishing.  Then we had some excellent dry fly fishing from 10am to 2:15pm.  The hatch was size 20ish baetis at the beginning and then the big size 14 callibaetis started around noon.  We hooked a ton of big fish on dries and landed fish up to 19 on callibaetis patterns.  The wind came up in a big way at 2:15 and that was the end of the dry fly fishing.  We switched over to nymphs after that and did some damage.  The best fish of the day was a 20.5 rainbow about 3 pounds landed by Stan.  These are really amazing, deep-bodied wild rainbows.

Rob's 19 rainbow on a dry

Our first big dry fly fish of the day

Stan's 20.5 rainbow on a nymph

Today was an outstanding day on Fall River.  Clients Stan & Bob stayed on the fish all day long.  We caught fish on streamers, nymphs, and dries.  The highlight of the day was fishing dries for three hours mid-day to big fish.  There is a great callibaetis hatch right now.  Stan & Bob hooked over a dozen 16-19 rainbows on dries.  In the afternoon they hooked a couple dozen more large fish on nymphs.  The best fish of the day was a 20 rainbow on a size 16 beadhead pheasant tail nymph.

Bob's first big dry fly fish of the day

Stan put on a clinic

I took my clients Dick and Chuck out on the Lower Sac today.  We had excellent action almost all day long, including two double-hookups.  We spotted a few spawning salmon - things should just get better and better over the next few weeks as more salmon settle in and begin spawning.

Chuck with a good rainbow

I just finished up two great days of fishing on Fall River with long-time clients Dick and Chuck.  Our first day was stellar and today was a bit tougher.  We had a lot of wind to deal with so we didn't get any dry fly fishing in.  The nymphing was very good - anything size 16-18 with a bead worked well.  Our best fish was a 20 rainbow about 3 pounds.

Dick's big fish of the trip

Lots of fatties like this

Getting into Brian O'Keefe territory

The white death!

I fished up in Redding today with clients Dan & Pete.  The fish were really clumped up in certain areas and we hooked a lot of fish.  We landed some nice fish up to 21 / 3 pounds today.  The big fish were definitely on the grab.  Not much in the way of hatches today - we hooked all but one of our fish on the big indicator rig.  The other one we got swinging a birds nest through a shallow riffle.

Dan's big fish

I did a swing trip today with clients Steve and Jim.  Steve fished a lightweight spey rod most of the day and Jim fished a single-hand rod with nymphs and no indicator.  There were lots of salmon dudes out today, and we saw a lot of salmon rolling.  We only saw one drift boat today and had all the prime riffles and runs to ourselves.  We caught fish in every spot we tried.  Steve caught fish on dries, wet flies, and streamers today.  There was a pretty good trico spinner fall in the late morning.  We were able to rise over a dozen fish to a very small parachute adams.

spey rods make fish look small

wading - what a concept

Just a quick note, the B.O.R. is sending a quick flush down the Trinity in order to keep Salmon and Steelhead related diseases in check. The release has already begun and will peak at 3400 cfs over the next 24 hrs and probably ramp down as quickly as it came up.  Fishing on the Trinity over the next couple of days will suffer but it will pay dividends in the long run, from my observations on the Lower Klamath as of last Friday both Steelhead and Salmon were continuing to pour in and this imho is welcome news ! 

Greetings from BC.  I've just opened some prime dates up in my booking calendar for the Trinity and Upper Rogue in November.  Steelhead season is upon us, and it will be nice to get back to my home waters of the Trinity and Rogue.  Contact me for more info or just book online. Dax 

A superb Trinity wild steelhead

The Trinity has some stellar spey water

The fishing on the Lower Klamath has been Outstanding ! Plenty of fresh Steelhead moving through the Lower Klamath, both adults and 1/2 pounders, We've hooked and landed multiple adults daily and the 1/2 pounders have kept the action steady throughout the day, My client Dick even landed a Chrome Bright Chinook on Monday. There is quite a bit of boat traffic but that is to be expected with the fishing as good as it is, even with the boat traffic I've been able to find water a little less traveled. I have some prime dates available for the Lower Klamath early to mid October.

another glorious tailout.....

fish on...could be you !

another day in paradise....

I just finished up another fantastic hosted week in steelhead heaven British Columbia.  The rivers here have no dams on them, and only native wild steelhead reside in these dramatic rivers. We stayed at Stan Doll's Skeena Wilderness Lodge in Terrace.  Stan has been guiding the Lower Skeena and its fantastic tributaries for over 40 years, and has a huge amount of commercial guiding rod days to offer his clients.  We fished 4 different amazing rivers over the week, which is a very unique thing to be able to do in BC.   Dennis, Murray, Doug, and Mike all hooked acrobatic dime bright steelhead over 20lbs.   Landing them was another story!  A good amount of steelhead and coho salmon were landed, chrome bright bars of silver.  I got a few on dry flies, epic.  We also worked on spey casting skills throughout the week, and everyone progressed quite nicely.   Good buddy and BC speycasing legend Brian Niska is opening up a sweet new lodge right on the Skeena River in October.  I have been staying there before and after my hosted trip.  Next year I will most likely be hosting trips at both lodges in late August into September.  Contact me if you are interested.  If you are a serious steelheader,  this trip is an absolute must.

Mega chrome BC resident

His Holiness in the morning mist

Love the river siesta

Murray aka the Dalai Lama with a chromer

Mike bates battling a huge steelhead on an amazing river

My 2nd day with clients Alan & Brian was really good.  We tried our luck on the Pit River.  We didn't see a single other fisherman all day.  We started off with a 17 rainbow on the 2nd cast and the action didn't stop.  We hooked a lot of nice big fish up to 18 in the morning on a variety of nymphs.  The afternoon was good with lots of hookups on the dry-dropper rig, but not as many big fish.  We had a couple nice rainbows on the hopper today.  

Alan with the result of his 2nd cast of the day

Lots of fish like this today

Fall River fished really well for us today despite persistent winds.  We caught a few small fish on streamers in the morning, but by 11:30am the nymph grab was on.  Throughout the mid-day and afternoon we hooked big fish in every spot we tried.  We hooked about ten fish in the 18-20 range and our best fish in the net was 19.5.  A really amazing, pristine rainbow.  My clients Alan and Brian were really impressed with the quality of the fishing on Fall River.

Big Fall River rainbow

The Lower Sac fished really well for me today.  I enjoyed a day off with some friends.  I fished my 4wt Echo spey rod with a tan birds nest for about half an hour and did some damage.  I landed two nice trout about 14 and then hooked up my first Lower Sac steelhead of the season, a stout 4-5lb fish.  Unfortunately I forgot I was using 4X tippet (my bad) and broke it off, but it was a great fight and I got a really good look at the fish before it stole my fly.  We also did well swinging soft hackles just under the surface and fishing small dries on a 4wt rod.  Fishing is great right now if you don't mind getting out of the boat!

The McCloud fished really well for us the last two days.  I guided some great clients on the Nature Conservancy Preserve both days.  We fished the pocket water and smaller pools with nymphs, dries, and dry/dropper techniques.  Most of our fish were small to medium, but there were a few fish over 14 in the mix, too.  Small mayfly nymphs worked great under a small corky indicator.  The hopper grab was good in the afternoons, too.  The fish were pretty grabby for the McCloud.

Jeffrey landed many fish

Gina with her big fish on her first cast

Well the recent water release out of Trinity and Lewiston Lakes have done exactly what was intended. The flows are up in the Trinity and the Lower Klamath and the water temps have dropped more than 10 degrees in the Hoopa Valley. The Big Wad of wild Steelhead that was holding at Blue Creek are now heading up river and many if not most into the Lower Trinity. Late Sept. and Oct. are prime times to Swing a fly on the Lower Trinity and the Lower Klamath will continue to see pulses of fresh fish. I access the Lower Trinity with my raft and the Lower Klamath with my jet boat. I have a few prime dates open late Sept and early Oct.

fish on...could be you !