The lead story in today's Sacramento Bee...

[Fly Guy Dave]

http://www.sacbee.com/2014/01/31/6116936/california-orders-dozens-of-streams.html

[Scott V]

Saw a post about this on facebook. I was amazed that every single post was from people pissing and moaning that they are going to close the river. And their main complaint was that the price of the license was going up but more water was closing. Those are the type of fisherman that do not care for the future of our fisheries, they only care about right now.

[DAVID95670]

main complaint was that the price of the license was going up .

You buy a fishing license? Never heard of this license

[winxp_man]

Saw a post about this on facebook. I was amazed that every single post was from people pissing and moaning that they are going to close the river. And their main complaint was that the price of the license was going up but more water was closing. Those are the type of fisherman that do not care for the future of our fisheries, they only care about right now.


Yes there are those that piss and moan, and they do not know squat crap about our natural resources! But then there are the people that know a bit of stuff and are pissed off at how incompetent our elected official can be or choose not to want to fix our issues.

Heck the newest one I heard today was that the Feather low flow will be shut down with no water soon if the heads of water management pass their ideas. So the idea is to slowly drop water flows and try to get the fish that are in the low flow to move out. Then completely divert the water through the afterbays and into the highflow area. I can see a few wild fish dying here.


I guess its welcome to the drought!

[Troutsource]

Some encouraging news this morning from the National Weather Service in their extended forecast:

"Next weekend is our more significant change with a wet pattern
setting up over the eastern Pacific. A low over the central
Pacific breaks down the moderate ridge and is then reinforced by
a Gulf of Alaska Low. Interestingly enough the GFS/ECMWF/GEM all
are in pretty good agreement for now on a Gulf of Alaska Low with
a decent initial subtropical moisture fetch. Thus, we have
introduced a potential for widespread precipitation across
interior northern CA."

When I go to Accuweather, they now have 7" of rain in February (vs. 1" yesterday)!
http://www.accuweather.com/en/us/granite-bay-ca/95746/month/2189754?view=table

I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

[hwchubb]

Hope they're right, then another 7 or 8 in March, some surprise April / May storms...
I hadn't checked before - how accurate were they for December and January?

[Troutsource]

They were too optimistic looking out to December and January, but unlike back then the models now appear to have adjusted for the mega-ridge, which is why as of yesterday (and for a few weeks) there was only 2" forecasted for the next 6 weeks (now it's 9" through March 17th). But who knows, as this development was rather sudden and could slip from the models quickly -- although having all 3 models agree this far out is rare.

[Troutsource]

Another update from this afternoon. Atmospheric river is good.

"Generally dry weather expected Friday into early Saturday as offshore
ridging is forecast to progress through. Models then advertising
atmospheric river to take aim on NorCal next weekend with WAA
precip advertised from about I-80 northward Saturday, spreading
farther south with increasing QPF Saturday night into Sunday. If
pattern develops as currently modeled, potential to see up to 1 to
2 inches of rainfall in the Sacramento Valley next weekend with 2
to 5 inches possible in the surrounding foothill and mountains."

[Steelin' Time]

Hope they're right, then another 7 or 8 in March, some surprise April / May storms...
I hadn't checked before - how accurate were they for December and January?

During Steelhead season, I constantly check three weather forecasting sources: 1. NWS 2. Weather.com 3. Accuweather.com
Of the 3, Accuweather is consistently more optimistic than the other two I keep tabs on. Accuweather is also the only one of the 3 that will make forecasts further out than 10 days, with Accuweather having their "45 Day Extended Outlook"

Around Thanksgiving 2013, Accuweather was calling for good amounts of rain for the Southern OR coast around December 20-23, 2013. No rain fell during that time frame. Weather.com is more conservative in their forecasts. NWS also tends to be conservative. Personally, I like whichever forecaster is calling for the most rain!

At any rate, all 3 sources are calling for some good rains to begin next weekend on the CA North Coast and the OR South Coast. I plan to head North for 10-15 days when the rivers are right, hopefully around Feb 11th or 12th.

I was able to fish the Southern OR coast for 8 days during January and fishing was good. Lots of Steelhead around this year and, if the forecasts hold, it will soon be Steelin' Time.....