The McCloud 10/17-19th
A couple buddies and I headed to the McCloud on Wednesday morning. I was curious to see what kind of damage the fire had done. I'd seen some photos of the area on the Cal Trout website but was anxious to see it first hand. The opposite bank looked pretty good. Seems it was mostly underbrush that got torched. It was really dusty and a big first rain will most likely cause come runoff/clarity issues.
We rolled into Ah-Di-Na around 4PM set up camp and headed downstream for a sunset to dark session. October Caddis were out in force along with smaller caddis and some smaller stones. I had trouble getting my game on. Lost a set up or two, generally thrashed around and struggled to hook up. I believe yfly10 and El Mosca Grande hooked a few but I can't be sure as we were all very thirsty once we arrived in camp.
Dark schwack back to camp.
The next morning we drove up to the PCT turn out and hiked for a bit and then headed down to the river. Being from Truckee, my comfort zone is bob-ima-cating but I was committed to short line nymphing to start the day. I had had some good success this summer with this method on the Truckee and felt it would work well in the pockets and short runs on the McCloud. I proceeded to snag and lose two or three set-ups pretty quickly, got frustrated and switched to a hopper dropper set up. I had stopped at Kiene's on Monday and Bill C. had said we should be hitting the heart of the October Caddis hatch. He recommended his stick caddis for nymphs and what looks very similar to his Emerging Thing except it had a light yellow wound body. I fished this dry on point and dropped all manner of LBS off the back for awhile. No love. Switched to a sink tip and ripped streamers. One grab by a 14-16" fish but it came unbuttoned. I saw the whole thing go down, though, so that was cool.
Elephant ears.
yfly10 working The Mac.
El Mosca Grande with one of the wild 'bows he got in the net.
The October Caddis had been around all day ovipositing, but around 4PM things started getting nutty. Lots of good sized fish catching big air to grab them. This is when Bill's adult caddis pattern became the blue plate special and when the fishing got real fun. Started out working close and had a good sized brown crush it on the first drift. Slowly worked out and up and hooked several other fish. I turned the run over to yfly10 who caught several fish. He turned it over to El Mosca Grande who continued to hook fish. It was a blizzard of caddis and the fish were mental for them.
The next day we hiked from camp and fished the same general area. It was pretty crowded on Friday. Kept running into people up, down and opposite bank. We found one side trail that looked rough but fairly new. Maybe the fire crews cleaned it up?
The fellas caught most of their fish on nymphs (I believe) and I caught almost all of mine on the OC dry. I don't get to catch fish on big drys too often so this was pretty sweet.
This is my fifth or sixth trip to the McCloud and it never disappoints. It's so amazingly beautiful down there and it's such a contrast from the east side of the Sierra. These facts along with my quest to stick one of those McCloud pigs I know are lurking will keep me coming back for years.
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Originally Posted by EO
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