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Great Had a great ending to this year's trout season on the McCloud river. The Golden Gate Angling Club was up from San Fransisco for a two day clinic. We went over wading safety, proper rigging, fly selection, and most importantly we got to explore a lot of the upper and lower parts of the river. A mixed group of beginner and expert anglers, I really enjoyed spending time with everyone. I love teaching new skills to beginning angers and refining skill sets for the more experienced angers. We even got some much needed rain on the second day; nothing beats fishing in the rain! Looks like the rain dance temporarily worked, but I'll keep up the effort as we can always use more precipitation here in northern California. Now for full throttle steelhead season!! The fishing on the Trinity has already been very productive, and will only get better as the season progresses and we get more rain. Patrick, Ling, Renee and Roger were a great group for day one. Day two's group: Kevin, Debbie, Bob and Brad. Another amazing group of avid anglers! Fall colors are poppin' Using dry fly techniques on the upper river High sticking pocket water down near Ah Di Nah |
Great Many of you know Sam Robinett because he is our host at Eagle Canyon. Sam just got back from a summer of guiding in Alaska and he is now available to guide on the Lower Sac. Sam put me on this huge rainbow late this afternoon. For those of you planning your Eagle Canyon trip (Eagle Canyon opens up January 2nd, 2016), I recommend spending a day on the Lower Sac with Sam or one of our other guides the day before or after you hit Eagle Canyon. If you bring a group of 4, you can do a 2-day combo trip for just $325 per person. That is a screaming deal and a ton of fun fishing two great fisheries in two days. That's a big rainbow |
Great More excellent fishing today on the Lower Sac. Garey and son Jeremy from southern California had a ball hooking dozens of quality rainbows. Our biggest fish today were about 19 and they landed a lot of 17-19 fish.Boat traffic is pretty crazy right now in Redding but everyone is catching lots of fish. As November rolls around the salmon spawn will extend downriver toward Red Bluff. That will spread out the traffic and there will be a lot of great fishing throughout the entire river system. |
Red Hot The Sac continues to fish extremely well. I guided Rod and his son Eric from New Hampshire today. They do a week-long fishing trip out here every year, fishing with favorite guides on the Fall River, Pit River, Klamath, and Lower Sac. Their timing was perfect this year for the Lower Sac. The fish were clobbering egg patterns all day long. They had quite a few double hook-ups and landed fish up to 21. Rod with a big one |
Great I guided father/son duo Harry and Ben today on the Lower Sac. Fishing was excellent from 8am until about 2pm and then it slowed down a little. We hooked some very nice rainbows today and landed several in the 18-19 range. |
Great My clients Bob and Charlie heard about the dry fly fishing possibilities on the Lower Sac from one of my fishing reports. We set up our whole day so we could be in the right place at the right time to cast to a big fish on a dry. The setup involved a lot of nymphing in the morning, since there is rarely any dry fly fishing on the Sac until the afternoon. The nymphing was really good with some real quality rainbows landed on egg patterns. From 1 to 3pm we fished dries, and Charlie sealed the deal on two quality fish. The first was about 16 and the second was taped at 20.5. That is a big fish on a dry. Bob had a heart-breaking refusal on his dry by an even larger fish. Fun stuff! 20 rainbow Charlie caught on a dry fly |
Great Fishing was pretty incredible again today on the Lower Sac. My clients Mike and Jim landed fish up to 22 and we lost one that was probably 23-24. The crowds are starting to show now but there are plenty of fish for everyone. Jimbo with a big one Mike's first fish of the day Jimbo strikes again |
Good Here are some photos from Steve and Jon who fished with Steve Eadie last week on the Rogue. Looks like a good time! |
Okay It's that time of the year when thousands of Steelhead Smolt's gather to work there way out to the ocean, at times it's nearly impossible to swing or drift your flies through a run without them being attacked. This will pass soon, it is a great sign for the future and a sign of a healthy river. Steelhead are currently spread from Willow Creek to Lewiston but not in any great numbers yet, if you can find a piece of un-pressured water your chances of success improve greatly. My November / December schedule is starting to fill, prime dates are limited, hope to see you this season. |
Great I had the good fortune to fish the Wood River today. The Wood River is a classic spring creek in Oregon located north of Klamath Falls. This is a challenging fishery and a must-visit fishery for dry-fly aficionados. The mahogany mayfly hatch started around 11am and was still going strong when I had to head home around 2:30pm. The Wood can be floated in a drift boat or pontoon boat, but I was on foot today. I had about 3 hours of head-hunting for risers. For the most part I had to stay low and sit or kneel while fishing to avoid spooking the fish. I saw some fish that were in the 18 range rising regularly, but they were very smart. I landed several fish in the 10-15 range on dries today. All but one were brown trout and every single fish jumped multiple times. If you like technical dry fly fishing you should book a trip on this river with one of the regular guides up here. It's pretty sweet. Summer is hopper time and spring and fall is mayfly time. Wood River brown trout Fish on The Wood River, a classic spring creek Wood River rainbow |
Great Fishing is starting to get really good on the Sac. The fish are turning their attention to egg patterns, but they're also hitting small mayfly nymphs. The egg bite hasn't quite turned on yet - but the boat hatch definitely has! Fishing is very good now! If you're thinking about a fall trout fishing trip - don't wait because all our schedules are filling fast. Tight lines! |
Red Hot This time of year can really spoil a guide - not to mention the clients. There are just enough salmon in the river where the egg grab is really good, the fishing isn't very technical yet, and the crowds haven't shown up just yet. More salmon are showing up every day. My client Tom had never fished the egg grab and learned a lot today. He landed a couple dozen nice fish from 8 to 20 with most in the 14-18 slot.Helpful hint - Tom was the winner of our annual email newsletter sign-up contest. If you haven't already signed up for our newsletter, do it now (on this page) and be entered for a chance to win a free trip! Tom with one of many |
Good Started my Steelhead season off on the Trinity today...John swung up an Awesome Wild Buck on a small traditional fly mid-river today, Great way to start the season ! I'm sure many if not most all of you are doing or have done a rain dance, all I have to say is dance HARDER ! Nice Buck ! John |
Great Fishing was really good on the Lower Sac today. The salmon are just starting to spawn and the fish are getting excited about eating egg imitations. There are still plenty of trout in the classic trout water, but in another week they'll all be in the redds looking for salmon eggs. My client Joe caught a really amazing fish today - a 20 rainbow that was about 4 pounds. It reminded me of the fish I used to catch in the 90s that ate tons of caddisflies and were short and fat. We had excellent action today right up until 3pm and then it shut down hard. Retro 90's Obese Lower Sac Rainbow Joe and Billy caught a lot of fish like this. |
Okay I had John and his Grandson Jonathan in my boat yesterday, the fishing was dead in the morning but picked up in the afternoon, the fish got pretty grabby on caddis imitations, unfortunetly the wind out of the North was brutal with gust's to 40 MPH we did are best and boated a few. Jonathan with a chunky Bow |
Good We had a fun day on the McCloud today. My client Lisa was determined to catch a fish on her Tenkara rod. We fished a section of smaller pockets that was ideally suited to the technique. Lisa got the hang of the casting and by the end of the day she had landed at least half a dozen trout, including two 12 inchers and a brown trout. Landing fish with a Tenkara rod is kind of a train-wreck since there is no reel and you just have to grab the line and pull it in hand-over-hand until you can grab the fish. We had a few Now What? moments after hooking up. Lisa's friend Maya also gave the Tenkara rod a try and caught a fish immediately. The ticket was a size 12 humpy with a small nymph dropper. The two biggest fish ate the dry and the rest ate the dropper. tenkara works great on the McCloud Lisa with a nice fish landed on her new tenkara rod |
Good Today was my first of three in the Fall River Valley - my last stint up here for the season. We got rained on today - actual RAIN - for several hours in the morning. It was pretty cool to get rained on. My clients Ernie & Joanne toughed out the rain and then at 1:30pm the rain stopped, the hatch got going, and the fish went nuts for 2 hours! We hooked some nice fish. The hatch was a mix of PMDs, callibaetis, and BWOs. The action was short and sweet, and at 3:30 it was DONE. |
Good Catching stripers and trout in the same day, on the same river, is pretty cool. Fellow guide and friend Brian Kohlman and I enjoyed a busman's holiday on the Sac today. We started by swinging up some nice trout up to 15 on lightweight spey rods. There was a huge trico spinner fall this morning and a lot of trout were rising. We weren't able to capitalize on that opportunity since we left all the single-hand trout rods at home today. We spent most of the day fishing for stripers. I landed a lot of schoolies up to 16 and Brian landed his first striper ever and it was quite a fish. BK with his big fish A stout fish They like the big flies |
Great My 6 weeks in steelhead mecca British Columbia has finally come to an end. I had another great group of guys for my few weeks of hosted trips. Everyone caught bright chrome steelhead, coho and sockeye salmon on the swing. Doug Rohn and I also experienced the most amazing dry fly steelhead day I have ever seen, raising over 20 fish on a remote part of a sacred steelhead river. We stayed at two excellent lodges, Stan Dolls Wilderness Lodge and Brian Niska's Skeena Spey Lodge. I will return to both operations next year, as I think they are the absolute best of the Lower Skeena guide and accommodation options. Contact me if you are interested, as there are limited spots during the prime weeks I have booked there. Heading to the Grande Ronde to start my mulit day float trips for Scott Odonnell's new Speywater Lodge. We have some openings for both my floats and lodge days. Contact me for details. Also booking Trinity trips for November, and Southern Oregon winter steelhead trips for December and January. My Olympic Peninsula days are filling up quick for February into April. I now offer accommodation options for that include meals and can offer attractive guide and accommodation packages, which are extremely rare up in that part of the world. Doug with a chromer The home water of Skeena Spey Lodge Mike Bates Ted Jablonski was the top rod of the week Mega chrome jumping dry fly fish BC steelhead are epic Doug after releasing another skated up fish Skeena mornings are amazing Mike striking a perfect pose with a perfect fish classic admiration shot |
Good The Lower Sac didn't produce a lot of fish today, but we landed some very nice 18-20 fish. My clients Chuck and Casey were interested in doing some dry fly fishing, so we nymphed in the morning and fished dries and dry-dropper in the afternoon. The afternoon dry fly fishing isn't on fire yet, but we had our moments. We had one ferocious grab from a 20+ rainbow on a dry. We had to resort to hopper-dropper to get some of the fussier fish. It was a fun day. Chuck's big fish of the day |
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