I recently went to the North Coast and was curious about steelhead fishing in the Eel River. The water flows were really low but the riverbed is enormous. So, does the river get substantially larger in size in winter/spring? That could make for some crazy wading. Since the river flows along the 101, access isn't an issue. I'm curious about when to go. Do the runs start earlier there than the valley river systems? I didn't see many signs that there were fish in the system. By comparison, yesterday at the mouth of the Russian River, there were seals and huge flocks of seabirds eating their fill of fish. My guess is that fish were moving through there? If only I had my gear....