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Our Opening Day auction is under way and will close at noon on Monday. You still have two days to bid on this great day of fishing! Opening day at Eagle Canyon is November 17th. The lakes will be full of rainbow trout from 4 to 20 pounds which have been rested since last April. Many of the fish in the lakes have never even seen a fly! Fishing should be fantastic. Here is the link to the ebay listing:http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=120984536970The ebay auction ends October 7th at noon. The opening bid is $1000, which is our normal $200 per person rate for a group of 5. The winning bidder can bring a group of up to five anglers and will have the lakes exclusively for their own group on Opening Day. |
The road to Ash Camp and Ah-Di-Na has just been reopened. Please be aware that the Bagley Fire burned the south (river-left) side of the river from Ash Camp downstream for several miles. |
Good Randy and Brian and I guided a great group of women fly fishers the last two days. We had three generations from two families and everybody landed fish. The highlight for my boat was a double hook-up first thing this morning.  Addie and grandma Ann caught these two fish  Ann was the hot rod today  Sarah with her first fish of the trip |
Our Opening Day auction has begun! Opening day at Eagle Canyon is November 17th. The lakes will be full of rainbow trout from 4 to 20 pounds which have been rested since last April. Many of the fish in the lakes have never even seen a fly! Fishing should be fantastic. Here is the link to the ebay listing:http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=120984536970The ebay auction ends October 7th at noon. The opening bid is $1000, which is our normal $200 per person rate for a group of 5. The winning bidder can bring a group of up to five anglers and will have the lakes exclusively for their own group on Opening Day. |
Red Hot My hosted trip to the steelhead mecca of British Columbia was amazing. Everyone landed native steelhead on skated drys and light tips, with fish reaching up to 18 lbs. Jeff Thompson rose over 20 steelhead one day! Everyone had moments of glory. For the totally committed steelheader, you need to put BC on the top of your bucket list and come next year. I have the prime week of September 1st booked at Z Boat Lodge on the lower Skeena, and possibly a few spots in mid august. Thanks to Dennis, Stroh, Bob, and the Jeffs for coming on the mega steelhead trip.
I am looking forward to the Trinity and upper Rogue this fall...early reports from the Confluence team are good. I will be there from mid november until mid december. We also have a few spots left on the Ronde where Ill be until then.
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Okay I Guided Mike from Placerville on Sunday on the middle Trinity. We saw quite a few Steelhead today, mostly on the move. We ended up hooking two, one about 4lbs and the other a nice dime bright wild fish that was in the 6lb. class, both were hooked swinging traditional flies near the surface.With the amount of Steelhead seen lately and the speed in which some are traveling, the river should be well stocked from top to bottom!!! |
Good I guided Don and brother-in-law Rob today on the Lower Sac. Rob was totally new to fly fishing and managed to land two huge fish in his first hour of fly fishing. One 18 and one 19-20 fish. The nymph grab was sporadic today. We hooked fish here and there, but there were some big gaps in between. The fly of the day was a size 16 pheasant tail. Rob also got a great grab on a dry from a big fish. The river has dropped to 7000cfs. Wading opportunities abount. The hatch wasn't as good today as it has been, but I think it will be better after a couple days of stable flows. I saw lots of fishing rising in the tailouts today, but not as many in the shallow riffles.  Rob's 2nd ever fly-caught fish |
We are pleased to announce the winner of our 2012 Email Newsletter Signup Drawing! Every one who signs up for our email newsletter is eligible to win a 3-day trip for two including guided trips on the Lower Sac and Trinity and a day at Eagle Canyon. Our winner this year is David McKinney from Chico. David signed up for our email newsletter when he fished Eagle Canyon back in December of 2012. David was selected at random from the list of folks who subscribed to our newsletter between September 1st 2011 and August 1st 2012. David is the president of the Chico Area Flyfishers. His reponse when we found out he was the winner: WOW! David already has his calendar out and is excited to schedule his trips. This was our second annual drawing for the 3-day trip. Last year's winner was Marvin Nao from San Francisco. If you haven't subscribed to our email newsletter yet, do it now and you'll have a chance to be our winner next year!  David at Eagle Canyon last December |
Good I just spoke with Gino Bernero who is guiding the Klamath River this week. He says fishing has been good. They've been landing adult steelhead to 24 every day and hooking lots of nice half-pounders. Gino is using his jet boat to access the best swing riffles and is exclusively fishing spey rods. |
Good I guided Steve from the Diablo Valley Fly Fishers today on the Lower Sac. He saw my presentation about The Lower Sac without a Bobber at the club last year and it piqued his curiosity. We spent all day fishing dries and swinging nymphs with a 6wt spey rod. The swinging with the spey rod was really slow mid-day but picked up in the evening. Steve landed his first fish on his new Anderson Custom Rods Nova 6wt spey rod right at dusk. That is a sweet rod! The mid-day dry fly action was pretty good today. Steve landed his biggest rainbows ever on dries while wading the shallow riffles today. Most of the fish we hooked on dries were in water less than 2 feet deep. Several were in water less than 10 inches! There is a great mixed hatch of caddis, craneflies, and small mayflies right now. The fish are selective - we changed flies a lot today.  Steve's biggest rainbow ever, and on a dry fly!  great sunset this evening |
Good The flows on the Trinity have dropped back down to there seasonal norm, release out of Lewiston is at 450cfs and should stay at that level till mid October. The additional flows over the past month have appeared to have been effective in preventing a fish kill this fall with the large on going return of salmon.Salmon have been seen in large numbers thru-out the entire river with more entering the Lower Klamath every day. There are already a good number of Steelhead in the lower and mid sections of the river. No need to dredge the bottom of the river for these early Steelie's, they are more than willing to chase down a well presented fly! No need for winter clothing either, this is shirt sleeve Steelheading at it's finest.I am starting to see interest as well as bookings, don't miss out on what is sizing up to be an outstanding Steelhead season! |
Great Randy Hamann and I spent the last two days scouting the lower sections of the Trinity River. The river is loaded with salmon - they were everywhere. But we also saw and hooked a good number of steelhead. We landed three today and lost a couple more. There are also plenty of jacks that are eager to strike flies. Randy landed one about 4 pounds yesterday. Randy hooked all of his fish on a floating line with a traditional steelhead fly on his 6wt spey rod. I got my fish on a big leech on my 7wt spey rod. The water is still high due to extra releases from Lewiston Lake, but it's scheduled to drop to the normal 450cfs release over the next few days. Even with the water on the high side, conditions were perfect for swinging flies. It only gets better as the water gets lower! If you enjoy swinging flies with your spey rod, come up and book a trip with us soon. I have a feeling that it's going to be a great steelhead year on the Trinity!  My first steelhead of the season  Randy with a chromer |
Good I fished the lower Feather River today with fellow guide Dave Barbieri. We floated the low-flow section in hopes of finding some steelies. I landed a nice one about 20 (see photo) on a birds nest nymph. The best part of the trip was seeing so many fresh salmon in the river. The salmon are hanging in the big pools and staging in some of the riffles. No spawners yet, but just wait a couple of weeks and the egg bite will be on. It could be a really good year on the Feather this year with so many salmon already in the river.  Feather Steelie |
Red Hot The Lower Sac has dropped to 8000cfs and the dry fly fishing is really turning on. There are plenty of big caddisflies around, plus a few craneflies and mayflies. The big fish are looking up, and they don't get much bigger than the one Harvey caught today on a dry. Harvey rose quite a few fish, as did his wife Jeannette. The biggest was Harvey's 23 rainbow, a fish about 4 lbs! We didn't fish any indicators today, just dries and a few nymphs on the swing. We hooked several on a birds nest or poopah fished on a floating line with no weight.  Harvey's really big fish on a dry fly  Jeannette's big fish of the day |
Due to intense demand we will be auctioning off Opening Day, which is November 17th. The ebay auction starts October 1st at noon and ends October 7th at noon. The opening bid is $1000, which is our normal $200 per person rate for a group of 5. The winning bidder can bring a group of up to five anglers and will have the lakes exclusively for their own group on Opening Day. The lakes will be full of rainbow trout from 4 to 20 pounds which have been rested since last April. Many of the fish in the lakes have never even seen a fly! Fishing should be fantastic. Here is the link to the ebay listing:http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=120984536970This is the 2nd year we've auctioned off the Opening Day on ebay. Last year it sold for $1151, just $151 over our normal rates. The Staudenmayer family, the winning bidders, enjoyed a fantastic day at the lakes. Three total beginners to fly fishing caught multiple fish and the more experienced folks hooked dozens of fish. Check out these photos from opening day last year:  Opening Day 2011  Opening Day 2011 |
Red Hot If you like to catch big fish on dry flies, book a trip with me on the Lower Sac. The caddis are hatching out of the shallow riffles and the fish are rising eagerly. This should continue for the next few months, but why wait? I guided my friend Mark Tompkins, his brother Craig, and their dad Bob today. They all hooked big fish on dries and nymphs.  On a dry fly  Craig caught this one on a dry  Bob's big fish |
Great I've been away from Fall River for about a month and much has changed. The water is higher and the weeds have grown in quite a bit. The river looks like it normally does, whereas in June and July it was low and not very weedy. There are fish everywhere, lots of them. The big fish are also spread out and present in large numbers. Yesterday we fished over some very difficult fish and got our buts kicked, only landing smaller rainbows. Today we found a run that held only big fish and they were much easier to fool. Lloyd from Livermore landed about ten fish before lunch time, all 12-18. In the morning there is a mixed spinner fall of callibaetis, PMD, and trico spinners. The PMD and Callibaeties duns start to come off around 11am. Each fish seems to be keying on a different bug, so the dry fly fishing was very challenging. We did much better with small mayfly nymphs under indicators. I took some great shots of the mayflies today from below the surface - take a look!  Lloyd's big fish  Callibaetis dun from underneath  Callibaetis spinner from underneath |
Great I took my client Lloyd down to Pit 3 for an evening session tonight. Things started slow, but everything changed when I switched to a size 8 rubberlegs nymph. That got their attention! Lloyd landed 4 and lost about 6 in less than an hour of fishing. We hooked fish from 12-17, all fat rainbows. There was quite a hatch right at dusk: a mix of mayflies, craneflies, and caddisflies. |
Great I took Harry and Ben downriver today, floating from Balls Ferry to Bend. We saw no other drift boats, and the fishing was better down there than it was up in Redding yesterday. Our best flies were rubberlegs and small beadhead pheasant tails. We caught most of our fish under indicators, but also hooked some fish swinging nymphs and fishing dries.  Ben's big fish  Harry's big fish |
Good I guided father/son team Harry and Ben today on the Lower Sac. We fished up in Redding. The river dropped 500cfs last night to 10,500cfs, but it didn't seem to affect the fishing. We had a pretty good nymph grab throughout the day, especially around 2pm. We caught fish on birds nests, poopahs, and S&M nymphs. The big caddisflies are just getting started in the afternoons. We saw plenty of fish rise. Ben landed a small fish on a dry and hooked a big one that got away. The afternoon dry fly fishing will only improve as the flows drop. If you're looking for a big fish on a dry fly, the Lower Sac is the place to be starting now and going through December.  Harry with a nice one  Harry was the hot rod in the morning  Ben was the hot rod in the afternoon |
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