Current Fishing Report

Here are a couple of photos from Captain Bryce Tedford's Delta trip today.  Bryce said fishing had been tough but that today was much better.  Nice fish guys!  Bryce is booked up for the rest of the fall striper season but his schedule opens up in March.  March through May is the prime spring striper season.

My guests Kevin and Alan are cousins that have been fishing together for years, but today was pretty special! Our day started out with Kevin landing a tweener and Alan landing a nice adult right out of the gate. A short time later they both hooked nice adults in our next run. Kevin hooked into a great fish that put up an epic battle before coming to net.  Some got a way and some came to net, but the fishing gods were on their side today and I’m sure they’ll remember this day for a long time!     

Alan off to a good start

Kevin with a great steelhead

Releasing Kevin's fish

Guest Report from Dave who fished Eagle Canyon today:"This was my 30th trip to ECL since it re-opened in 2010 and the best day so far. Water was clear and we had a slight ripple on the water most of the day. The fish were grabby, healthy and hot. Most fish were between 6 and 10 lbs. Stripping and indicator methods both worked. Scot and his nephew Will both had their best day here too. Eagle Canyon, a one of a kind fishery!!"

By now, everyone has heard the lower Sac is off-color or muddy. This is correct, but the river is still very fishable. My recent trips have not yielded big numbers of fish, but all the fish my guests have hooked have been really big! For the past two days my guests Frank and Mat connected with some exceptional fish! The fish they landed would be considered great fish on the Trinity (in my opinion), so if you’re interested in avoiding the crowds and staying a little warmer, you should consider fishing the Sac. The extended forecast is not showing much rain, so conditions will continue to improve as will the fishing.

Mat with a truly special fish

Frank with a great fish

Opening Day 2021 was possibly the best opening day in the history of Eagle Canyon.  The fish are huge this year (well over 6 pounds on average), have great coloration and are in great condition.  They fight hard, jump, tail-walk, and just don't give up.  Our guests today did very well with beadhead woolly buggers fished on floating lines and 9ft 0X leaders.  No joke.  In a week these fish won't go near a 0X tippet, but it's working fine right now.  We had incredible weather and lush green scenery thanks to the rains in October and early November.  It looks like March at Eagle Canyon right now with green grass and snow on nearby Mt Lassen.  He still have 4 open dates in December - check our availability page and book your date soon!

Rich with one of many

Tim learned how to land big fish today

Courtney pillaging on the island

The fish are big this year!

Water clarity on the Lower Sac is slowly improving.  I've been monitoring it closely with a sophisticated scientific instrument (a tape measure with a bright orange thing on the end) and it has gone from inches to a foot to about two feet today.  This still isn't great but the fishing today wasn't bad!  Luke and I guided a fun group of guys and while the numbers were not typical for the Sac we got some really nice fish with a likely steelhead or two in the mix.  It's worth going, let's get out there!

Relaxing at lunch

Beauty!

Steelhead?

Hog!

All smiles!

Patented Water Clarity Device

The Trinity has been very consistent for my guests so far this season. Nymphing is obviously the most effective technique, but my guests that prefer to swing flies have had some very good success! My last three days were swing trips, and my guests were fortunate enough to connect with fish each day. Swinging flies for steelhead can be challenging, but also rewarding! Whether you are an experienced two-handed caster, or someone that is considering going down the “spey” rabbit hole, reach out to us at www.confluenceoutfitters.com and book a trip!   

Craig with a great fish

Marshall with a small native adult

Looking for the latest update on what's happening on the Lower Sac, Upper Sac, and Trinity River? Check out the latest video river report I did. The Lower Sac is still colored up a bit, but fish can be caught. The Upper Sac is looking gorgeous and when it blows out, returns quickly. Plus the Trinity is fishing well. Check out the video here: https://youtu.be/NAwnybSRqj0If you haven't yet subscribed to the channel, be sure to smash that buttom right alongside the bell so you get notified when we put new things up! 

The Trinity river steelhead fishing remains good to great fishing . Recent rains have kept it fresh and fish moving. A good mix of wild and hatchery fish eating a wide variety of flies. I am on a short break after spending three weeks on Trinity with a few Sac days. All I can say is book a fall or winter trip to get in on the action. As always my recommendation is to fish multiple days for the best chance of succes. This season has been best in years with quality fish in the system. Let's just keep the rain coming.Come out and play!Peter

As you may or may not know, the Lower Sac is very muddy!  With Lake Shasta being very low there is lots of exposed shoreline.  The torrential downpour we had a few weeks ago washed lots of dirt off the steep shoreline into the lake, which flows into Keswick Reservoir, and then into the Lower Sac.  Visibility is way less than a foot.  It's possible to scratch out a few fish in certain spots but that's about it.  It's anyone's guess as to when conditions will improve and a lot depends on how heavy future rainfalls will be.  In the meantime we can set you up with a trip on the Trinity, which is fishing good to great depending on the day (i.e. typical steeheading).  Stay tuned and we'll keep you posted on the conditions on the Lower Sac!

What a day it was for my guest Mike! He recently moved to the Sacramento area from southern California and quickly learned about the lower Sac. Our plan was to fish the Sac, but with conditions being less than ideal we decided to fish the Trinity instead. This was Mike’s first time fishing the Trinity, but he has fished B.C. several times and knows how to play steelhead. By the end of the day, Mike connected with four large adults. It’s no longer a secret - the word is out the Trinity has fish so expect to see other boats and walk-in anglers. 

Autumn colors

Mike with a beautiful wild buck

We came. We fished. We caught. We had fun. That's a pretty good summary of today's trip with Jason on the Trinity. We got going at the crack of light and at the end of the day we landed 5.5 out of 7 hooked adults. What's that .5, you ask? Well we had one adults RIGHT to the side of the boat and RIGHT next to the net when it just popped off, so we decided to give it a .5 landed, haha! The river had just a slight bit of color and there was definitely water coming in via a number of creeks ans whatnot, but overall it looked really good. We also caught a fair number of half pounders throughout the day, though the fishing pretty much shut down in the later afternoon, but that's been pretty common as of late. Either way I'd say the fishing was great and the Trinity continues to be a great option while the Sac is still suffering from all that recent rain (which we needed!). Back at it tomorrow, so stay tuned and if you wanna get a chance for yourself, let's go!

A feisty wild steelhead

A big ‘ole buck!

I just got back from the Middle Klamath after a few days and the river is fishing great! Multiple adults each day along with plenty of the famed half pounders. Grease lining muddlers and traditional irons was the approach to which worked excellent. I will be fishing up there until Mother Nature decides to bless us with large amounts of precipitation. Head on over to the website or give us a call and get on the books, don't let this opportunity pass you by.

I was supposed to take Wally and David fishing on the Lower Sac but as the river looks like the Mississippi (mud from Lake Shasta) we headed for the Trinity.  It was a beautiful day and we managed to connect with a few adult steelhead. That qualifies as success when chasing these elusive fish.  We will keep you posted on conditions on the Lower Sac, stay tuned!

Tom and Cheryl joined me again for two days here in Northern California, fishing on the Sacramento River and then chasing steelhead on the Trinity. We were on the Sac on Friday and the river had a bit of color in it when we first started but it wasn't blown out and we hooked a lot of fish throughout the morning. I think by 9am we had probably put fifteen fish in the net and had lost a bunch more. Getting on early has its rewards. By the end of the day the river had definitely become much worse and visibility went from around four feet to less than six inches. All that ash and mud had finally made its way through Keswick down to Redding and definitely made an impact. Despite this challenge, Cheryl still managed to put the largest fish of the day in the net.. a heavy 'bow that taped just under 24 inches, what I like to call a "two hander." Of course, as a "professional," I had to grab a quick photo with one hand when we were letting it go... and as the fish was safely returned to the river and we watched it swim away, we all smiled.Now I've been telling Cheryl and Tom about the Trinity for the past month and a half, so with the increasingly blown out Sac, it seemed to make sense that we go over and check it out. So on Saturday we made our way up and down Buckhorn to float the Trinity River and chase some of those elusive steelhead, the next stage step in Cheryl's discovery of fly fishing. Tom has caught salmon and steelhead before, so he knew what we were in for. The weather was supposed to be a bit rainy but we ended up dodging the rain and even enjoyed some mid 60's temp, with the sun poking its head out the clouds. Fishing wise, Tom and Cheryl quickly learned about how challenging the Trinity can be, especially since it has a lot of shallow runs and trees have a funny way of popping out just at the last minute. But we found fish! Overall we hooked five adults and landed one of them, a smaller adult that gave up one of the hardest fights I think I've seen. I was shocked at how hard that thing pulled and how long it took us to put it in the net... but we did! And while that was a really cool experience, the moment that's replaying in all of our minds is when Tom hooked what was possibly the largest fish I've ever seen on the Trinity. After I had floated through a productive run, I rowed back up and on our second pass, he hooked the giant leviathan of a steelhead. It immediately jumped twice, making massive splashes as it's 10+ pounds of weight crashed back into the river. Tom played the fish for a few minutes and, as he turned it perfectly away from a number of logs, the fish jumped one final time and broke him off. That final jump continues to replay in my sleep and we spent most of the day talking about that fish. We also hooked a number of half-pounders, fish that are potentially the fastest grabbing fish in existence. Hook sets have to happen quick or those things will shake off!The Trinity is definitely fishing well, so now's the time to book a trip! There should be steelhead in the system for another four months, so let's get something on the books!

Sometimes you hook trout while stripping your flies in to recast

This taped out at just under 24 inches, quite a handful.

Another boat told us we were must have found a. “honey hole” because they watched us hook five, ha!

Lassen has snow!

Cheryl has become a pro!

One of the hardest fighting Trinity steelhead I’ve seen, despite it’s size!

Photo bomb!

It was about 8:55am when Tom got this in the boat and we’d already caught about 15!

A beautiful sunrise!

Southern Oregon is getting hit with same system Northern California is.  With the Army Corps of Engineers keeping outflow from the  Lost Creek dam around 900...ish the Rogue River has been skinny lately.  This has meant when we find steelhead we find a lot of them stacked up.  With this big shot of rain we are gonna see the river level bump up.  We can expect to see the fish moving around a bit more and find more fish moving up.  We have had great days on the river mixed in with some hard ones.  It is steelheading after all.  Yesterday we brought two to the net and lost a handful more, including a nice fish that took an epic run and gave us some jumps before coming off the hook.  Nymping from the boat has proven most effective with fishing from the bank at times to really work some water producing fish as well.  Swinging flies has been rewarding with multiple hook ups a day.  October is just about done and November is gonna be good.  Winter weather is coming so it'll be wet but the fishing will be hot. 

Lyman and Doug fished with Confluence for two days on Fall River and stopped in Redding on their way home for a day on the Lower Sac.  Shasta Lake muddied up a bit with the recent rains which has the Sac colored-up somewhat but we still had pretty steady action for most of the day, mostly on "steak and eggs".  We did have to play a bit of "bumper boats" which is pretty normal for this time of year.  Do unto others etc goes a long way.  Come and get some before winter sets in!

Frank and Don joined me for a float on the Lower Sac and we caught fish steadily throughout the day. The river has some color to it and I think it actually got worse as the day went on, which indicates that it's possible some of the stuff filtering from Shasta down through Keswick may be making it's way down. But that's okay... these fish are still on a protein diet and eating. We had a few lulls here and there but most of the day was spent hooking fish and fighting fish and putting fish in the net. Highlight of the day was the 24.5 inch fish that Frank hooked (from the back of the boat!!!) that took us down river about half a mile (literally). We managed to hook it in FAST water, dodge rocks, trees, and everything else and put it in the net! It was a nice capstone to a great day. Eggs are still getting eaten, so it's not too late to get out! October flows right into November!

24.5 inches! We’ll take it! And no, not on an egg!

A beautiful Lower Sac trout!

20 inches of egg eater.

Egg eater.

Don got some nice ones too!

Kevin Kay and I had a couple of days with Craig and his buddy John, p;us Craig's two kids, Peter and Clare. What can I say? Yesterday on the Sac was rainy but we got some nice fish. The river was colored a bit, but that didn't seem to bother the fish. Long ago I figured out that if you have hot chocolate, lots of candy, muffins, and are willing to take breaks, kids can enjoy a day on the river just like adults! So after we got our feet wet (literally) on the Sac yesterday, we headed over to the Trinity today... and boy did it fish well! We hooked a lot of adults as well as half pounders. EVERYONE, including 8 year old Clare, caught fish! The Trinity was in nice shape... a bit clear but there are adults in the system and they are eating! My hats off to these four for fishing hard and thank goodness it paid off! Another successful trip to tell stories about! I have some openings in November, so don't hesitate to book a trip on my favorite Northern California steelhead fishery!

Adults only, right John?

Peter w/ a nice steelhead!

HOG ALERT!

Clare’s first half pound steelhead!

Clare’s first trout from the Sacramento River

John with a nice Trinity Steelhead

Craig got some nice one’s too!

Lower Sac egg eater!

The last couple of days have been good on the Rogue River.  We are fishing hard under an indicator and fishing flies on the swing hasn't been too bad.  We've brought fish to hand nymphing and had a few grabs on the sink tip.  This year has been anything but normal.  The Army Corps of Engineers cut the outflow to a level that hasn't been seen in years.  This storm system that is over us right now is dumping at lot of water and we saw a decent rise in water levels overnight.  Fishing has been hard but we have had success working areas we know.  We are going to see rain through Wednesday (10/27) which is going to bring the water levels up and get the fish that are holding low in the system moving.  The season is not over yet and we are going to have more fish moving up river with this rain.  I still have some dates available and would love to take you out on the Upper Rogue.