Russian River

[Adam Grace]

Does anyone have any information or suggestions where to fish the Russian River if my buddies and I decide to try to salvage our original steelheading trip. We were originally going to fish the Eel but we canceled since this recent storm system was forecasted to hit that area hard.

Where might we try if we are driving up from the Napa area?

[JGB]

but I can't imagine the one in Sonoma County is gonna be anything but chocolate milk until...2027?

Possibly some coastal streams will have short windows of fishability? Maybe the American?

The Eastern Sierra should be happening soon if your looking for a "quick" fix. Yuba? Lower Sac?

Bummer about your plans getting screwed up, but I guess that's steelhead fishing!

JGB

[Adam Grace]

Yeah, it was a shot in the dark. The flows have drastically come down from 11,000 cfs to 3,000 and since I never fish nor monitor the flow on the russian I was wondering if those flows would be ok. Does anyone know of any other possible steelhead fisheries may be close to the Napa area that may recede in flows quicker than larger rivers that may still hold steelhead?

[jumpshooter]

there is no way the flows are that low. Last night (after 12 inches of rain this week), the flows were well over 8,000 cfs. It has been raining steady .25 to .50 inch an hour since last night.

There isn't much of a chance that anything will be fishable on the coast for more than a week as we are still going to have rain for the next 4 or 5 days right now.

You might want to try the bay or delta, but it is just as brown.

[Charlie S]

Adam, I'm in Ukiah near the headwaters of the Russian and it's running 2-3 feet over what you could fish. Milky Brown and it won't clear enough to fish up here for at least three weeks or more. There were loads of fish in the system before the storm and this will give those, hatchery and wild, a chance to spawn without further interference. Same goes for the coastal streams...we have had a tough year water wise for over there and although there were some fish in the systems, they were not at the count they should be.