|
Great I just wrapped up my hosted week at Z Boat lodge on the Lower Skeena River. Brad and Kim have a terrific operation here, with stellar guides and accommodation. We had a typical week of steelhead fishing, with some amazing moments fishing the lower Skeena and its tributaries. Thanks to Paul, Dennis, Pete, Bruce, and George for joining me in one of my favorite places on Earth. Great times were had on and off the water that made a truly memorable trip. I will book two weeks next year in September. Spey Casting legend Brian Niska, one of the best casting instructors I have worked with will be taking the operation over next season. I am fortunate to be spending a total of six weeks here in BC. Overall returns are low, but I have managed to hook epic fish on the hallowed waters of the Dean, Kispiox, Bulkley, Morice, Skeena, and Copper. Pressure is very low this year, and the weather has been superb. Its also nice to be around such amazing anglers who share my love of speycasting for steelhead. I will be on the Ronde for the whole month of October until mid November at Speywater Lodge, which is totally booked. Then I will head to the Trinity to join the Confluence crew Andrew, Gino, and Randy in late November until Christmas, and still have available dates.  Dean River guides April and Steve from Blackwells Lodge  Dennis and Greg, and epic chromer  Dennis and Greg, again  The Gooch, again  The crew on Z Boats deck overlooking the mighty Skeena  Paul in the moment  Fish on in a 200 yard perfect swing run  epic dog pic  Pete Notz in the first spot he fished |
Our Bow River Trip starts tomorrow! Katie and I fly out of Redding first thing in the morning. We are really looking forward to a great fishing trip with some of our best clients. Check back next week for photos and a write-up of the trip! |
Great I was able to get an early scouting trip in on the Lower Klamath, the Salmon season is ramping up and along with it Steelhead ! There was the usual boat traffic that accompanies the Salmon run but it was not very difficult to find water to myself, especially in the afternoon. I hooked 4 nice sized half pounders and 2 adults, 5 of the 6 came in about a 40 min. flurry of action when the sun, moon and stars aligned, thats Steelhead fishing !  28 8lb Bright Hen ! |
High flows are scheduled for Pit 5 this weekend, Sept 7/8. If you were planning to fish Pit 5, you should consider heading to Pit 3 or 4 instead. |
Great
Well after a last minute law suit by Westlands Water District aka Darth Vader, to stop what everyone else in the world thought was the right thing to do, the water is now flowing ! At this time the release out of Lewiston Lake is about 1400 cfs. The release is scheduled to ramp up to 2650 cfs by midnight tonight and then ramp down to 850 cfs after Tuesday and stay at 850 cfs until Sept 19th and then ramp down to 450 cfs till mid October. This is the medicine that the Trinity and more importantly the Klamath needed, water temps in the Lower Klamath have been hovering around 70 - 74 degrees for a month or more. This flushing flow should reduce stress on the fish and hopefully flush out any pathogens that have been building with the low flows and high temps. To date there has been a decent run of Summer Steelhead that have entered the Klamath and most of which are headed for the Trinity, the cooler temps in the river will entice more Steelies to leave the salt as well as an estimated 272,000 Fall Run Chinook. Looking to be a good year, despite the efforts of Darth Vader ie; Westlands Water District !
|
Good Fishing is good on Fall River right now. I guided Jerry from Lodi and son Greg the last two days. We had some great moments, including some 18+ rainbows eating dry flies. The dry fly fishing is really good right now. We've had opportunities on spinners and duns from 8:30am until the wind comes up, usually around 2pm. There are countless big fish to target with dry flies right now. The toughest thing about it is that most of them are eating spinners, and there are so many spinners that our odds are not great. Try spinner patterns that look a size or two smaller than the ones you see on the water. It's a mix of trico, callibaetis, and PMD spinners right now. The duns start to come off around 10, but get thicker around noon. The river is a ghost town this time of year. Lots of fish and hardly anybody out on the water.  On a dry fly  Greg caught this one-eyed trout on a small nymph |
I can't take any credit for this (other than for watching the kids), but my wife Katie went salmon fishing with some friends today and caught this huge king salmon on the Lower Sac!
 Katie Harris with a massive salmon |
Good Gino and I just finished up three days of guiding on the Bollibokka Club on the McCloud River. What a place! The lodging and cooking facilities are excellent. When you drive into the property it feels like you're stepping back into history. The river itself is the same McCloud you would recognize from the public water upstream, just bigger. There are also more long flat sections and riffles. There are definitely some large rainbows on the Bollibokka, although they are not easy to catch. The McCloud River down there is a very physically demanding river and the fish are no easier to catch than on any other part of the McCloud. The allure is the privacy, the diversity of water types, the trail system, the history, and the presence of some larger fish.  There are some nice rainbows on the Bollibokka  pocket water galore  There are many smooth sections like this  Lots of beautiful riffles  Is this a spotted bass?  fish on  Mike with a nice one |
Good I guided Sarah and Ryan from Genoa Nv on Sat., we had perfect weather for August, low 90s, partly cloudy and just a slight breeze. It was the nicest day I've had on the Lower Sac in some time, unfortunetly the fish didn't take notice. We floated from Bonneyview to Balls Ferry and fished hard but were only rewarded with a few fish. There was little to no insect activity through out the day so I guess the fish took the day off. Tomorrow will be a different story, always is. The flows have begun to drop and stabilize, currently 11,982 cfs, after the summer peak flows, the fishing will only get better on the Lower Sac from here on out.  hard earned rainbow |
Great Fishing continues to be really good on Fall River. There are very few other fishermen out this time of year and we're getting some good hatches. There are PMD spinners in the morning, PMD and callibaetis duns from 10am until 1pm or so, water boatmen mid-day, and caddis and hexes in the evenings. Lots of damselflies around now, too. The hex hatch is still productive. Bill and Chuck from the Bay Area both caught fish on hex dries. The evening fishing has been pretty outstanding on all techniques.  Bill with one of his best fish  Chuck caught a lot of big fish  Chuck got this one on a hex dry |
Okay I fished the Upper Rogue yesterday with my good buddy and stellar angler Charles from Flywater Travel. We put in at around 6 am and Charles landed a nice wild steelhead at around 7 on a nice traditional fly swung on a floating line. We had a few other encounters that did not yield a fish, but it is great that there are finally some biters around. Cooler temps are expected next week, so fishing should pick up a bit, but it is still an early morning game for now. |
Good I took Sam and Jim to the Upper McCloud today. The river fished great and we didn't see any other anglers. There were hundreds of people out enjoying the waterfalls, but nobody fishing where we were. We had good luck on dries (elk hair caddis and hopper patterns) and nymphs. We hooked a couple of truck trout, but mainly caught wild rainbows up to 9 inches or so. |
Good I took the guide school boys out for an evening of hex fishing tonight. The hatch was surprisingly good. Sam and Jim each broke off a nice fish on the hookset and Jim landed an 18 rainbow. We had about 10 grabs on the big dry fly in all. Not too bad for late July! |
Okay I have fished a few days on a few different sections of the upper Rogue. The river at Dodge Bridge is running around 1550 cfs, which is pretty low for this time of year. The river is a bit on the warm side down in the Grants Pass area. Not ideal conditions, but a few adult steelhead are being caught in the mornings before the sun beats on the water. Fishing mid day is rather unproductive. Things will hopefully pick up in the next few weeks. I'm heading to the cooler weather and river temps on the beautiful Olympic Peninsula next week, which will be a new featured venue for me this August and again in March where bookings will be extremely limited. |
Gino and I had the opportunity to scout the Bollibokka Club on the McCloud River today. No fishing, but we got to scout the trail system and get the lay of the land. We're guiding a group of anglers staying on the Bollibokka in August. We're looking forward to a lot of wet wading and hopper-dropper fishing! Many thanks to Michael Caranci at The Fly Shop in Redding and to caretaker Bruce for setting up this scouting trip.  Gino Bernero overlooks the river  Gino surveys the scene  Great water for all techniques  The confluence with Chatterdown Creek  There are many beautiful riffles like this  The view looking down from the Way Station |
Great Katie and I just got back from a great backpacking trip. We were in search of Paiute Cutthroat Trout in the Carson drainage. We didn't see any people for two days, caught tons of fish (even one Paiute!) and saw some incredible scenery.  at the trailhead  perfect ox-bows  Katie with her first fish of the trip  meadow stream fishing at its finest  a Paiute Cutthroat trout  rainbow trout  Llewellyn falls, barrier to rainbow trout |
Great The holiday crowds and brutal heat has cooled off here in the Fall River Valley. The Hex hatch is still happening, though not quite as prolific as a few weeks ago. Clients are still hooking fish every night on the giant dry fly, and having lots of opportunities during the day on drys as well. Lots of grass in the river to contend with...lots of big fish too which makes it worth the effort. Some truly big fish have been landed this past week on drys by patient anglers. Prime time during the day has between 9am and 2pm.
I will be taking my talents up north soon due to solid reports of steelhead being caught in the Rogue River and beyond. The Rogue is one of the best bets to swing up an epic wild steelhead in late July in the lower 48. Then in August, I will be on the famed Olympic Peninsula on the coast of Washington, swinging up steelhead and sea run cutthroat on those beautiful rainforest rivers...bookings will be very limited. |
Great
My client Dick from Sacramento landed an amazing fish today. It was a perfect specimen about 5 pounds and 2 feet in length. This fish is what every wild trout wants to be when it grows up! The fish ate a size 14 pheasant tail and put up quite a fight. It was a satisfying conclusion to a day of casting dries to fussy trout. The hex hatch was also red hot last night. Dick had at least a couple dozen grabs and landed some nice fish up to 17. These 17 fish looked pretty small after landing the giant fish earlier!
 It barely fit in my net! |
Great Our private section of Battle Creek fished really well today. Ivan from Palo Alto was back for his 3rd trip on Battle Creek. The fish were on the grab from the get-go. We had a lot of luck with a size 10 Turck's tarantula, but our best fly was a size 12 parachute adams. Ivan had one spot where he hooked five fish in five casts! Our biggest fish was about 10, a great fish on a four weight rod. We also saw a couple dozen spring Chinook today. These fish are really amazing. Just to see them is a treat. They'll hang out in the creek until mid-September and then they'll spawn and die. Last year Battle Creek had a record run of 700+ spring Chinook. |
Great Fall River is fishing rather well these days. The hex hatch last night was pretty good. It started early - our first grab was around 8:15pm. There were a fair number of adult hexes on the water throughout the evening. The fish weren't too picky on the fly last night, either. We landed about 5 and lost many others. Daytime fishing is good up until about 2:30pm, and then the fish take a little siesta. We fished sinking lines all day today and did well. The hex hatch is showing no signs of slowing down. We saw at least a dozen hatch this morning on the upper river.  Robert with his first fish of the day |
|