American River Help!!

[davkrat]

I've been skunked on the American 4 times now. Twice in the last week!!! My brother and I have seen lots of Caddis comming off. Each time we have seen a few fish make splashy porpoising rises which made me assume they're after emerging pupas. My brother had about an 18" fish hit his yarn indicator while drifting a caddis larva. I tried a large hopper pattern to see if I could make him try again, no luck. I tried caddis dries, dead drift no luck, skated no luck. I swung an olive bodied wet fly, no luck. Nymphs with split shot, no luck, without shot, no luck! The caddis seemed very light colored almost white. There were tons of Hydropsyche (green rock worm?) larva in the water. We tried a Czech style nymph very similar to these with... no luck!

Any tips would be greatly appreciated. I'm assuming the half pounders haven't really started yet but I have very little experience with this river and steelhead in general. Thanks

[slage]

Welcome to the A....
Keep on keeping on

[Bill Kiene semi-retired]

I have fished those Halfpounders for over 40 years with a fly and before that with night crawlers and such.

Hit them hard in September. That my favorite month. They are fresher then and in schools too. Plus they are a little dumber too.

Last Fall Halfpounder run was terrible. Some years it's good, some it's bad and some it's unreal.

__________________________________________________ ________

One of the best mornings I have ever seen was about 10-15 years ago.

It had been good and was in early September.

We were at Watt Avenue (my secret place) above the bridge which is one of the 6 or so best places for Halfpounders on the river.

I showed up and met two nice young guys who were in the shop the day before. I told them to meet me at Watt Avenue. We waded in above the bridge just below th clay banks and that big angular riffle up there. I was demonstrating to them how we fish for them with a WF6F line, 9' 3x leader and #12 caddis green emerger.

Below us was Jeff Blunden by himself.

Then is a little while Joe Shirshac waded out in the river above us.

That morning we all hooked fish that were 15 to 22 inches.

Jeff landed 7.

Joe got 11.

The young guys with me got about 6 between them and I snuck in a few.

I think when we all ended up at the bridge we figure we had landed 27 fish total for the 'group' in 1.5 hours.

I have fished from above the big riffle up there all the way down below the bridge hundreds of times with a tap though.

All I do is start early or late in the day and cast, mend and swing right in the surface with any #12 nymph or wet fly. We step down about 4-5 shuffles every cast so we cover a long stretch of river.

We look for fish to 'roll in the surface' or 'show'. Sometimes they are eating caddis and sometimes there just happy fish. If you see a fish roll get above him and cast across and swing the fly right into him. Maybe twitch the fly as it comes into his view. Late when the caddis are depositing eggs we skate caddis dries. Maybe #12 on 4x tippet.

In all those years I landed a 7 pounder and a half dozen around 5 pounds while doing this too. That's the bonus.

One of the 5 pounders was on a Cortland Ltd. split cane rod I took in on trade that day. It was on a LaFontane Caddis Emerger that Bob Giannoni tied and was dressed so it fished as a dry to that fish which was eating caddis on top right at dark.

That fish was really hot. I think it jumped 6 times and covered a lot of water on that flat slick above the clay banks. A half dozen of my buddies where there so it was a big show. Always nice to have an audience when you get lucky.

[Jgoding]

Slage pretty much summed it up.... the "A" can be very frustrating at times. Last 2 years have been tough for me.... I went through a phase as you described.... I would fish one evening.... go home and tie up new patterns.... fish the next evening.... go home and tie up more new patterns.... rinse and repeat..... My personal opinion is the fish hunker down and are very selective in what they take. You may see a lot of fish rising but I think the fish are picking up the pupa as they come off the bottom and are following them up and taking them... Fish obviously taking adults are easy to target but it's when I see a lot of splashy rises is when I have a hard time...

Jeff

[erhetta]

Mano, I am right with ya, but plan on keepin' on keepin' on. I am loving it even though I have not bent the rod other than to pull in some snagged twigs. :(

I am sure both of our lucks will change.

[Bill Kiene semi-retired]

I would try down around Paradise Beach/Cal Expo now.

I usually like to fish somewhere from Watt Avenue downstream in in the Fall.

Early and late is better in the heat.