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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 |
Good Fall river the past few days was a ghost town. With lower pressure, the fishing was decent with mid day baetis hatches as well as the fish keying in on the nymph and streamer grab. The weed beds have grown in quite a bit to offer extra cover for the trout. Fall river in the autumn season is absolutely a hidden gem. Scenery. Sarah making a roll cast. MT Shasta! Way to go Dave! No parr marks on this fish Marc! Well done! |
Great I had a really fun day on the Sac with my buddy Mark from Colusa. The stripers were pretty grabby today. We landed about a dozen including two medium-sized fish. We also saw four fish in the 20+ pound class. It was a fun day of casting streamers at the banks. My big fish of the day Mark caught lots of fish today |
Great You wouldn't know from the pictures, but we caught a lot of trout today on the Lower Sac. The suckers were biting too and I couldn't resist a picture of two suckers in the net. Today was the first time I've been cold in a long time. A front moved in and the temperature was nice and cool all day. It got a little blustery around lunchtime, and when the wind died at 3pm the fishing was red hot. Along the way we had some fun dry fly fishing, but the nymph grab from lunch through the end of the day was outstanding. My clients Dan and Frank put about 30 trout in the net. Tons of 12-15 trout today. Spooning suckers Mirror image |
Great Gino Bernero says that the lower Klamath River is fishing very well. His clients have been hooking adult steelhead every day and there are good numbers of half-pounders, too. Fishing should be good through the first week in November. |
Good I just received an Upper Rogue River report from local guide Steve Eadie. His clients went 3/5 while swinging flies on Friday. He says water levels are dropping quickly. Lower water should concentrate the fish big time! |
Good I fished stripers today with my good friend and fellow guide Mike Wright from Sacramento. We fished the Corning area which was very busy with salmon fishermen. Striper fishing was good, although we didn't hook into any big fish today. We landed over a dozen small stripers plus a smallie and a couple pikeminnows. I saw one really big striper today. When I was out two days ago I saw half a dozen big fish that were in the 15-30# range. One was so big it almost scared me. It looked to be 40# as it swam right underneath the boat.There were good numbers of salmon rolling throughout the river today. I talked to some of the salmon guides and results ran the gamut from hooking nothing to hooking ten fish. Mike with a typical striper for today big pikeminnows (squawfish) like to eat streamers, too The most expensive stripping basket money can buy! View out the front door View out the back door Stripers eat flies like this Big fly doesn't always mean big fish Mike with a fish on Sacramento smallmouth |
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