lower Feather River

[slipjoint]

I moved back to the area after a 30 year absence - rookie question - is there good small mouth fishing in the Feather in the Marysville area - thanks - tom

[Tracy Chimenti]

Hey Tom, there can be good fishing for smallmouth, spotted, occasional redeye, and largemouth bas as well on the Feather. Towards the middle of summer and fall, coontail moss can be found along the sandy banks and if you can find it with some debris-- trees, logs, rocks-- the samllies will be in there. Down around Nicholaus, there's a pair of fishermen that do pretty damn good on some dandy smallmouths flipping jigs around the trees in April and May (pig and jigs). Rip-rap, pilings and wingdams are other areas you can find them. Often they run pretty small, but i've caught some nice ones on top water. The neat thing is, you never know what your gonna get bit by when your bassin on the Feather.

Tracy

[slipjoint]

thanks Tracy - we had a home in Spokane for 30 years - in the mid 60's i fished Priest Lake very hard - Lake trout - caught Mac's up to 49 pounds - Dolly Varden to 19 pounds - in those days a 30/35 pound Mac was common - We bought a cabin on Lake Pend Oreille - about as close to heaven as you can get with out entering the pearly gates - Rainbows (Kam's) in the 20 pound range were very common with 30 pound fish not un-common - we consider a 5 pound Kam a shaker in those days - early on there wasn't a limit on Kok's then a 300 fish a day limit then 100 fish - now i thank it's 25 fish per day - millions of Kok's in the lake - a 5 or 600 fish day was normal on hand lines back then - long story short the fish & game managed to kill most of the Kok's off with in turn killed off the food chain for the Big Kams - so today a 10 pound Kam is a very nice fish& few & far between ! but thats progress i guess

i like to zero in on a piece of water & get to know it - i asked about the feather because it just looks fishy to me - it's close to home & it appears to have a variety of fish & not that much pressure? i'm sure at time's the water gets busy -

i'll dig up some pix's of the "True" good old days fishing the waters up in the NW - i'll have to hook up my scanner so i can copy them to my web page - some of the younger guys might think i'm BS'n but i'm not - have plenty of pix's to back it up - thanks - tommy
http://www.picturetrail.com/tomhudson

[Bill Kiene semi-retired]

It might sound crazy but over the years I have heard that the Smallmouth fishing on the lower Feather River was good in August. I can only guess that it is because the flows get down and they get hungry?

I heard from a conventional guide, Jack Adan, that there was good structure and fishing from Marysville upstream on the Feather.

The better fishing in the summer should be early and late in the day so that precludes lots of fishing hours for us that live further away but locals should take advantage of that.

[slipjoint]

i heard the same thing Bill, about some nice area's up stream - - i restored my boat over the winter - the boat launch is only 10 minutes away for me - i'll stop in the shop & see ya on my next trip to the city - tom
http://www.picturetrail.com/tomhudson

[slipjoint]

i open an album called Huntin & Fishin - i posted a few pix's - i'll try to find some more later if you like - kinda fun for me seeing these old pix's - i took my huntin & fishin pretty serious at one time - i no longer hunt & i catch & release unless their white meat fish - Yummmmmmmmm
http://www.picturetrail.com/tomhudson

[lynnwhite44]

Hey Tracy what is a red eye?

I caught a few yellowish fish off a rocky island in lake shasta last summer while vacationing with the family and was not sure what kind of fish it was.

[Tracy Chimenti]

A red-eye bass is a type of black bass indigenous to (i believe Alabama or Arkansas). It ws native to the Coosa River (wherever that is) and was plnated in Nor Cal in the early 20th century. Similar in structure and pattern to a smallmouth, it can be foudn in nor-cal rivers and sloughs aroudn the Sutter Bypass and Sacramento River. A scrappy fighter. Eyes are red all year, not just a spawning time as in smallmouths.

Tracy