Year round Steelhead in the Lower American River?

[Bill Kiene semi-retired]

Ran into a old friend last night at dinner who grew up on the Lower American River and still lives very close to it now with his young family.

He fishes conventional methods and says he can walk to the river from his house and catch some Steelhead on 'night crawlers' all year round now. (big live worms)

I am feeling that this is true now too from things I hear over the past few years from others.

I think it is just too hot in July/August but they are there feeding.

[Jeff Fisher]

Before I started flyfishing for good, slinky's and mini-crawlers were the best fish catching rig I ever used on the American. In my opinion, there is no freshwater fish alive that can resist a worm.

I have spent many hours toiling at my tying bench trying to come up with a fly-fishable equivalent to the live mini-crawler. Those natural colored old-school small rubber worms were the closest I could get and even caught a few fish. But fishing them on the swing, the line twists became too much, so I gave up. I guess an indicator would be a better choice.

As for the summer steelhead.....yes, there are spots on the river where there are cool-water springs. These fish will hang out there during the summer. The fish Jeff C. and I used to catch in July/August were different from the fall/winter/spring fish. They were all similar in size and shape.......3-5lb footballs with a very pronounced bright pink stripe and a green back. Some say they were resident fish, but I only caught them in the summertime. Who knows...

[FlyReelFisher]

I dont say this to be incendiary or a rabble rouser...

I met a guy when I was fishing for shad. He was catching steelhead right and left walking these worms down the river. Real nice guy! He said you have to stay on top of the feel of the line or that worm ends up in the gut of the fish rather than its lip. He regretted gut hooking a fish because he figured they were crawfish food....