Lower Feather River Steelhead info....

[Bill Kiene semi-retired]

.....from local guide and instructor Lance Gray:

Bill,
I was swinging a small size 10 TS Bugger. Minus the palmer hackle and I added a just a collar of black Grizzly. Underneath the hackle I placed a couple of ostrich herls with a little flashabou with lead eyes. I fish it on a floating line with a nine foot leader. The grabs have been fantastic.

Spring fish can run from 16-24". We see fish that might push 5 pounds.
Spring fish start to show up in January and peak in March and April.
The fish that I sent you a picture of was last week and it was at White Gate Riffle.

Fall/Winter fish size are the same. Some fish reach to 8 pounds. The biggest fish I saw last year was a student of mine in the Steelhead School was 7 pounds. The best time in the Fall is October - December. That is when I conduct the Steelhead School.

Lance

http://www.lancegrayandcompany.com/files/march_2010.pdf

[Bill Kiene semi-retired]

I have spent most of my life fishing the Lower American River and Lance Gray has done the same on the Lower Feather River.

Both rivers have things in common but they are slightly different too.

They both usually have a nice spring run as do many Valley rivers.

With lower flows this spring try to get out in March/April/May on the Lower Sac, Lower Feather, Lower Yuba and Lower American rivers.

All you need is a fly rod with a floating line, 9' 3x leader and any #12 wet fly you have faith in. We fish these flies with a "down and across" method also called "swinging" the fly.

Some dry fly fishing goes on here too.

A commonality is the abundance of caddis in all these rivers although mayflies and stone-flies are in some of the cleaner drainages.

Many species of smaller fish are being eaten by these little sea-run midgets too.

Some of these river have a good population of resident trout as well.

[Cal]

How about posting an image of the fly ? Sounds interesting.

[Darrin.Deel]

I will be there tomorow and give a report at the end of the day.

[Lance Gray]

I will post the fly when I can figure how to do it. I just send pics to Bill. By the way Bill thank you!
Lance
http://www.lancegrayandcompany.com