Current Fishing Report

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.

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

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

 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.

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

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

 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

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!

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

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

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.

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!

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

This past Labor Day weekend, I had the pleasure of hosting a trip with Travis Johnson and his company All Waters Angling. We floated and camped on the Lower Deschutes river. This river is regulated for bank fishing only, which meant fishing from the boat was not an option. No problem here! With the big water and bouldery riffles, spey casting is by far the most effective way to fish this water; not to mention the most fun.  Travis is the world record holder for spey casting and an excellent guide and instructor. The river conditions were excellent. With Travis' help and that of fellow guide Caleb Lockyer, everyone was able to improve their spey casting, learn more about the river, and have some fishy encounters. Not to mention excellent cuisine and lots of laughs. I know I'm already looking forward to next year!   

Even I got to fish a little....

Gorgeous scenery is also included.

Chris with a hog!

Fish on!

Early starts mean being the first on the best runs

Zach with another fish on.

Travis landing a beautiful hen.

A well hooked chromer.

Love that tail!

Dave was a first time spey caster, his casting really progressed though out the trip

Randy and I did a trout spey trip today with 4 members of the Peninsula Fly Fishers club.  Fishing was pretty good today!  Everyone hooked a lot of rainbows on their spey rods.  We also had some dry fly and hopper-dropper action.  Our biggest fish today were about 16 and most came on size 14 birds nests and hare's ears.  Randy and I used our jet boats to transport our clients from one prime swing run to the next.  This is a really fun trip because you can wade fish all day and there is very little down-time.  Our clients had a great time tuning up their spey casts and catching good numbers of fish today.

Chris hooked up with snow-free Mt Lassen in the background

Randy cruising by in his sweet Willie sled

Spey casting at the tipi

Mike swinging through a nice riffle

Patrick leans into a spey cast

Mike fishing hopper-dropper

I've spent the last 10 days touring around the amazing Skeena System in British Columbia, where I have been hosting trips for the past 5 years.  I am expanding my hosting operation this year, and will be offering multiple location and trip options in the future to better suit time and financial concerns for the avid steelheader.   The fishing has been fantastic since I've been here, with rainy steelhead days and cool temperatures.  This is a drastic change from the hot dry weather this summer I experienced in California, Washington, and Oregon.  The steelhead seem to like it too.  I've seen some amazing fish landed this week from 8 to 21 lbs, and saw some larger ones hooked and lost. This place is truly amazing.  

Darcy Bacha with an insane specimen

I had a fun day on the Pit River today with father/daughter duo Rich and Nina.  FYI, the Pit River Road is still closed 24 hours/day a little ways above Rock Creek.  We came in from the Big Bend side and started in Pit 5 and worked our way up to Pit 3.  We did okay nymphing the deeper buckets, but the best action was with a hopper/dropper rig in the smaller, shallower pockets.  Nina rose fish up to 16 on her hopper pattern.  She had a lot of hopper grabs on pink and olive hoppers in the mid-afternoon.  The best fish to hand was a fat 16 rainbow on the dropper nymph.  Nice going guys!  Rich and Nina both survived the Pit without falling in and they both caught fish!

Hooked up

Nina with a typical size rainbow for today

Nina with a new fish pose

Rich hooked up

I fished the Lower Sac the last two days with clients Chuck & Bill from the Walnut Creek area.  Overall, the fishing was okay.  The nymph grab was pretty tough at times, but good enough for decent action.  We had fun yesterday fishing dries and dry/dropper in the afternoon.  Those of you who enjoy the afternoon DFO (dry fly only) half-day trips will be interested to hear that the caddisflies are starting to hatch and there are some very big fish eating them on the surface.  Chuck hooked one that was well over 20 yesterday.  Bill did well on the hopper-dropper rig, hooking two nice fish on his dropper on consecutive casts.

I fished with Cheryl from the Diablo Valley Fly Fishers today on Battle Creek.  Fishing started out pretty slow, but the bite turned on around 1pm and improved throughout the afternoon.  Cheryl had a 7'6 3wt, a perfect rod for our private section of Battle Creek.  She landed a lot of nice 10 rainbows and countless smaller fish on a variety of dry flies.  The best fly by far was a size 14 parachute Adams.  The biggest fish hooked was a 12 rainbow that ate a size 6 orange Chernobyl ant.  This was my best outing on Battle Creek so far this season.

Cheryl with one of many fish caught on dries today

Battle Creek is the perfect size for a 3wt fly rod.

I spent a half-day scouting for stripers on the Sac this morning and the bite was really good!  I landed 5 schoolies and lost 3 bigger fish, the largest about 15 pounds.  I also landed a 10 pound plus squawfish - one of the biggest I've ever seen.  I had one really big striper (I'm guessing 20+ pounds) follow my fly, too.  The striper grab should be pretty solid for the next two months.  Come up and check it out!