Valley Steel
I've been having a terrible year with steelhead. I recently moved to Oakdale and haven't been able to fish the AR like in the past. Have also been skunked on the Eel a couple of times and the San Lorenzo a couple of times. I finally redeemed myself when I fished a valley river over the weekend. Had to work both mornings so I was only able to fish the late afternoons. Both days I nearly had the river to myself only seeing a handful of people both days, and most were gear guys throwing spinners and spoons for steelhead.
Having never fished this river I only had a few suggestions on where to go. I figured in all the other tailwaters I've fished, head up to the highest point so that is what I did. I followed a trail upstream from the highest access. I probably walked close to a mile and it was almost all frog water. There was some trouty water well upstream but a gate blocked my path and it looked like it was another mile upstream. I elected to head back to a riffle I saw on the walk up.
After rigging up I fished this riffle pretty hard for a couple of hours with nary a grab. It seemed like this riffle was just too wide and shallow for a nice steelhead to hold. I slowly made my way downstream fishing the deeper sections of the still fairly shallow water. I continued downstream until I saw the shallow water end and the river flowed into a deeper seam. This area was still fairly shallow but much deeper than the other spots. A pretty good caddis hatch started to come off and the fish started chasing them. Saw a very nice fish roll and I was finally relieved that I may not get skunked.
I threw my nymph rig and watched it float downstream. Once my flies got to about where the fish rolled I stopped my indicator and then got absolutely ripped while my flies started to come towards the surface. Fish immediately took off downstream jumping the whole way down. It then did a complete 180 and jumped a couple of more times. This fish must have jumped 4 or 5 times with body completely in the air. It was one hot fish. After about 30 seconds I started to put more pressure on it to try and get it in fast. Big mistake. I'm used to fishing big hooks on steelhead and I rarely fish a size 16 fly. Guess which fly the fish decided to take? Needless to say the hook pulled and I was pretty disappointed. Especially since it was a very nice fish for a small river.
After this I pulled off the indicator and proceeded to swing through this run several times. I was getting picked by fish like crazy. I must have had 6 or 8 pecks while swinging through and none of them stuck. I was a little disappointed with another 0 on the card, but at least I wouldn't feel as guilty if I accidentally put a 1 in there since I actually hooked a fish!
I returned on Sunday to a new spot from a tip from my dad. He hadn't fished here for 20 years but remembered a "classic" steelhead riffle as he called it. On my walk down I ran into a bobcat hunting gophers. I watched him for a couple of minutes and took a picture with my phone before I made some noise and he spooked. Well I found the riffle and he was right. It was by far the best looking water I had seen on this river thus far. This time I didn't even bother rigging up my indicator just threw on a 7' 4 ips sinking leader and had at this riffle. About three casts in had my first bump. Took a step back up casted it again and got ripped. This one stuck and I defintely took my time on this fish. Got it to hand about a 16" wild HP. Good enough to call a steelhead!
Went back through again and had a couple more bumps but no sticks. Decided to throw on my indicator and fish through again. After that I went back to swinging and it only took a few casts to get another monster grab. Fish took off downstream and nearly into my backing. I babied the fish in again since this fish was considerably larger than the last. I was relieved to touch the leader and tail the fish. My first "true" steelhead of the year (Stan fish don't count). And it was on the swing which made it that much better!
Apologies for the pictures they were taken with my cell phone.
Reply With Quote
Bookmarks