October is my favorite month for Steelhead

[Bill Kiene semi-retired]

In October the water temps are normally best for swing flies on a floating line in the surface.

For this kind of fishing it is best to have low light levels. This is either early and late in the day or in the shade of canyon walls or when it is over cast from clouds or even fog near the coast.

Try to get out as much as you can on almost any of our Valley rivers now. The Lower American, Yuba, Feather and Sacramento all have small and some medium Steelhead in them now.

The Klamath, Trinity and Rogue Rivers are the closest for us here in Sacramento or the Bay Area.

Getting out with a guide for a day is going to increase your odds of catching fish and learning some technique as well.

For us in this area we can fish the Lower American River in the fall, winter and spring for Steelhead where we can hone our skills, then we can take those skills to the rivers to the north and hopefully hit a good run of Steelhead .

We are getting folks in daily now who are heading north of here for an annual trip to one of the fine Steelhead rivers.

This can be to rivers in Nor Cal, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and British Columbia......

Come into the shop if you want to talk about this kind of fishing. We can help you with your Steelhead adventures.

.

[kabah088]

What are your swinging these days with your floating line? Caddis dries, puppae, emergers, eggs?

[Bill Kiene semi-retired]

On the Lower American River we use lots of green to olive wet caddis imitations in size 8 to 12 but they will some times hit anything buggy.

Some just use trout nymphs and other just use Woolly Buggers.

On the Klamath, Trinity, Deschutes, Grande Ronde and Rogue Rivers I would be using a #6 dark traditional winged Steelhead fly like a Silver Hilton in low light levels.

Many also like the Muddler Minnow.

[speyfool]

What are your swinging these days with your floating line? Caddis dries, puppae, emergers, eggs?

When I lived there, I did well on the American/Yuba/Feather swinging buggy looking size 8 or 10 hair wing steelhead flies. If they are eating on the surface, I'd just switch to a smaller soft hackle with a stout hook.

Now that I'm up north, I'm using bigger flies. I use a size 3, 4 and sometimes 6 hair wing in the Summer/Fall. I have a hard time believing color makes a difference. It is about movement, size, sparse/or not, and most importantly, presentation. I'll switch to something smaller, like an eight or maybe a 10 if I get a fish going at my fly, but not committing.

While I don't believe color has a lot to do with it. I do have my favorite flies that are made with certain colors. I think that is more for me than the fish. In the mornings, I stick to black or purple. In the afternoons, I lighten up and put more color in. In the evening, I have a fly that has been getting a lot of attention. I won't say what it looks like, but it has muted red in it. The point is, when you find something that works, whatever it looks like, you get confidence in it. And it is a self fulfilling prophecy kind of thing.

[inclinejj]

My fav month is every month when the weather is cool.

October is always the awesome month. You have warm the first couple weeks then Fall starts.

Oct/Nov are the months where you never know what you may get. You can get enough snow to ski top to bottom by Halloween or nothing by Thankgiving