News
Yesterday's rain marked the end of summer for me. The cool moist air reminds me of fall steelhead fishing.
We did not get enough rain to do much more than soak in, but it is the start of the cool down that leads to great fishing in October.
The best north state location for steelhead is currently the Lower Klamath River. I spoke with Tommy from Little Ray's Tackle in Klamath. He reported that the commercial fishing nets were pulled from the river before the Labor Day weekend.
This, along with the full moon on the fourth, put a lot of salmon in the river. Moving up river with the salmon are modest numbers of steelhead. The water temps are just above the magic 65-degree mark, where the salmon fishing takes off. This info is prior to the rains of the last few days. I expect that things have cooled even more in the last 24 hours.
Tommy said that there are both half-pounders and adult steelhead moving through. The success rate for anglers is directly related to skill level. One local fly angler who Tommy considers the best fly angler on the lower river caught over 20 fish one day late last week, swinging traditional flies. Many other anglers report few fish or getting skunked. The point is that the fish are moving through and on a given day it can be good. Being able to move up river on a jet boat is critical.
As of last Friday the salmon anglers were doing well drifting roe through the deeper holes from boats. Each river has its own method for fishing. On the Lower Klamath, jet boats will motor up river and drift down through likely runs bouncing roe off the bottom. It is not unusual for multiple boats to work a given run.
In contrast a popular technique on the Sacramento River is to anchor and fish a Quick-Fish in one spot. These two techniques are incompatible. A Sacramento style boat would plug up a run for the Klamath style and cause some hard feelings on the water.
When in Rome, do as the Romans do.
The other good fishing pattern that I found recently is trout moving shallow in many of the high elevation lakes.
Last Friday, a group from the Gold Country Fly Fishers made a trip up to Boca Reservoir outside of Truckee. Ace Emmerling was one of them and he reports good fishing with trout feeding sporadically at the surface throughout the day. Most of the feeding fish were within a long cast from shore. A variety of flies worked. Nymphs and buggers were the best producers.
Up at Bucks Lake, an hour drive above Oroville, the fishing has been excellent according to Craig Bentley. He fished there the past two weekends. He has been concentrating on fishing the shallows adjacent to in coming creeks. He has been fishing nymphs, casting them into the creek current and drifting them out into the lake. He has taken rainbows, brookies, browns and an occasional kokanee.
The kokanee in the lake are staging at the creek mouths but have yet to move up the stream. They have developed their spawning colors and hooked mouths. Craig said they were caught on nymphs incidental to trout fishing.
As the storm front moved in the wind put white caps on the lake. Bentley said, “This was the only time other than on an Alaskan trip that he stayed out in wind that strong to keep fishing. That's how good the fishing was.”
The third report of shallow trout comes from Eagle Lake. The water temps before the weekend were generally 66 to 69 degrees. During the hot weather months the trout move deep in the south end of the lake. Recently the trout have been heading up in the water column and feeding in water as shallow as 7 to 10 feet along the shore.
I have scattered reports of some fish showing up in the shallow northern basins. There are good numbers of fish in the upper reaches of the southern basin. It will be any time that the migration north to feed will begin in earnest. My source noted that the tui chubs seem to be more brown than olive this year. He has been using a felt tip pen to convert olive trolling flies to brown/olive with good results.
Frank Rinella floated the Lower Yuba late last week for the Highway 20 Bridge down to Hammond Grove. He rated the fishing as fair. Trout were caught on P.T. nymphs and San Juan Worms. The fish did show a little interest in hoppers cast to the bank. Frank was looking for salmon activity and hoping for a possible egg bite.
So far the salmon are in the deeper water and the quantity of salmon is disappointing.
On the Feather River, there are some steelhead and salmon in the low flow. The egg bite has yet to come on. The one note worthy fishing report is of an angler catching stripers in the After Bay Hole on a swim bait. Every fish that swims in the Sacramento River system turns up at the After Bay hole at one time or another.
Denis Peirce writes a weekly fishing column for The Union and is host of “The KNCO Fishing & Outdoor Report,” which airs 6-7 p.m. Fridays and 5-6 a.m. Saturdays on 830-AM radio. Contact him via e-mail at dpeirce@theunion.com.
We did not get enough rain to do much more than soak in, but it is the start of the cool down that leads to great fishing in October.
The best north state location for steelhead is currently the Lower Klamath River. I spoke with Tommy from Little Ray's Tackle in Klamath. He reported that the commercial fishing nets were pulled from the river before the Labor Day weekend.
This, along with the full moon on the fourth, put a lot of salmon in the river. Moving up river with the salmon are modest numbers of steelhead. The water temps are just above the magic 65-degree mark, where the salmon fishing takes off. This info is prior to the rains of the last few days. I expect that things have cooled even more in the last 24 hours.
Tommy said that there are both half-pounders and adult steelhead moving through. The success rate for anglers is directly related to skill level. One local fly angler who Tommy considers the best fly angler on the lower river caught over 20 fish one day late last week, swinging traditional flies. Many other anglers report few fish or getting skunked. The point is that the fish are moving through and on a given day it can be good. Being able to move up river on a jet boat is critical.
As of last Friday the salmon anglers were doing well drifting roe through the deeper holes from boats. Each river has its own method for fishing. On the Lower Klamath, jet boats will motor up river and drift down through likely runs bouncing roe off the bottom. It is not unusual for multiple boats to work a given run.
In contrast a popular technique on the Sacramento River is to anchor and fish a Quick-Fish in one spot. These two techniques are incompatible. A Sacramento style boat would plug up a run for the Klamath style and cause some hard feelings on the water.
When in Rome, do as the Romans do.
The other good fishing pattern that I found recently is trout moving shallow in many of the high elevation lakes.
Last Friday, a group from the Gold Country Fly Fishers made a trip up to Boca Reservoir outside of Truckee. Ace Emmerling was one of them and he reports good fishing with trout feeding sporadically at the surface throughout the day. Most of the feeding fish were within a long cast from shore. A variety of flies worked. Nymphs and buggers were the best producers.
Up at Bucks Lake, an hour drive above Oroville, the fishing has been excellent according to Craig Bentley. He fished there the past two weekends. He has been concentrating on fishing the shallows adjacent to in coming creeks. He has been fishing nymphs, casting them into the creek current and drifting them out into the lake. He has taken rainbows, brookies, browns and an occasional kokanee.
The kokanee in the lake are staging at the creek mouths but have yet to move up the stream. They have developed their spawning colors and hooked mouths. Craig said they were caught on nymphs incidental to trout fishing.
As the storm front moved in the wind put white caps on the lake. Bentley said, “This was the only time other than on an Alaskan trip that he stayed out in wind that strong to keep fishing. That's how good the fishing was.”
The third report of shallow trout comes from Eagle Lake. The water temps before the weekend were generally 66 to 69 degrees. During the hot weather months the trout move deep in the south end of the lake. Recently the trout have been heading up in the water column and feeding in water as shallow as 7 to 10 feet along the shore.
I have scattered reports of some fish showing up in the shallow northern basins. There are good numbers of fish in the upper reaches of the southern basin. It will be any time that the migration north to feed will begin in earnest. My source noted that the tui chubs seem to be more brown than olive this year. He has been using a felt tip pen to convert olive trolling flies to brown/olive with good results.
Frank Rinella floated the Lower Yuba late last week for the Highway 20 Bridge down to Hammond Grove. He rated the fishing as fair. Trout were caught on P.T. nymphs and San Juan Worms. The fish did show a little interest in hoppers cast to the bank. Frank was looking for salmon activity and hoping for a possible egg bite.
So far the salmon are in the deeper water and the quantity of salmon is disappointing.
On the Feather River, there are some steelhead and salmon in the low flow. The egg bite has yet to come on. The one note worthy fishing report is of an angler catching stripers in the After Bay Hole on a swim bait. Every fish that swims in the Sacramento River system turns up at the After Bay hole at one time or another.
Denis Peirce writes a weekly fishing column for The Union and is host of “The KNCO Fishing & Outdoor Report,” which airs 6-7 p.m. Fridays and 5-6 a.m. Saturdays on 830-AM radio. Contact him via e-mail at dpeirce@theunion.com.
