Butte Creek

[MrBig]

Does anyone have experience fishing for steelhead on Butte creek. First off, is it legal? I heard there are great runs there. I heard some interesting stuff about steelies way up the canyon. Anyone???

[Adam Grace]

It's okay, pretty small, better to drift down but pretty.

[burl51]

Butte creek has a very fragil steelhead population. Fishing is only catch and release barbless hooks. The runs aboaut 10 years ago vere decent at best. Now the fishing is even tougher as the run is not that substancial any longer. I go once or twice a year for a couple of days. Lucky if I get one a day. The fish are small 15 to 18 in fish. Now ya know what I know. Oh yea in the canyon area the access is limited as most of the property is private. The property owners are not to frieldly either.

Burl

[jhaquett]

Agreed, property owners are not nice at all! They have been conditioned from the hundreds of tubing teens and twenties (myself included) that spend a day or two a summer on the river. A lot of fun! 8)

One guy has razor wire all up and down the river's edge to his property because he has a bridge that is EXCELLENT to jump off...he has run off dozens of people with 4 wheeler and shotgun, pretty extreme.:roll:

Anyway, fishing is only from like early or mid November to February. The time of year when you could really clean up with fresh salmon and steelies is summer and it is illegal then. BY FAR the best way to fish Butte is floating. It is really tough to find any public access that might actually hold some fish & as pointed out before you will not convince any property owners down there to let you step one foot on their property :roll:

I would suggest a good kayak and a wetsuit. Float from steel bridge down to covered bridge. Watch out for the rapids, a few are somewhat hairy even in the higher water times of summer. :wink:

[Covelo]

I thought their was a right of way along streams to the high water mark. I don't remember if this is a federal or state regulation. I know fishermen have used this on the Russian to access stretches that would otherwise be private. This does not give you access, but if you gain legal access from up or downstream, you can walk or float the stream and fish off any bank. Of course this does not mean anything if the guy is totting a shotgun. :(

[jhaquett]

Yea that is a law. Although, it is very very difficult to apply that law to very many feet of Butte Creek's bank. Lots of vegetation and deep drop offs, etc. That guy I was talking about has the issue with people jumping off of his bridge. It just really upsets him, I guess... :lol:

[jbird]

Covelo

That only applys to NAVIGABLE waterways. Non navigable waterways have a variety of laws placed on them. For example, there are some non-nav rivers in oregon that are privately owned to the center of the river bed...except thru stretches of public land of coarse. You cannot even get out of your boat/raft without being on private property. These land owners are notoriously unruly because of the constant trespassing on their property.
I'm not positive on this but a navigable water way is one in which companies used the river for transport of goods or some other aplicable commerce that required travelling the river. Often it is a historic law that was placed on the river, regardless of how its used today.

Jay

[MrBig]

Cool, thanks to all. Sounds pretty intense.