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Klamath River Journal...Get Ready for Steelhead
By: Richard Alves
The first rainstorm of the season arrived on the night of October 10, a significant event following the driest year in these parts since the 1920's. The river mouth had been blocked all year by a sand bar, which only allowed passage of salmon at high tides. The bar also disrupted river flow into the ocean. The salmon would come in with the tide only to discover the river was too warm and swim back out to sea. The Sea Lions and flossers had a field day. River temperatures finally started dropping into the 60's around mid September, three weeks later than a normal year. Then around October 1, mysteriously, someone brought in some heavy equipment and opened the river mouth. |
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A very large pod of Chinook immediately headed up river. "There were so many fish in the estuary you could see a hundred breaking water at once," Guide Dan Carter told me. The fishing was good for a few days but the fish were moving and didn't stay around the mouth long. By the time I arrived the run had dwindled. There were fish in the river but you had to work for them. I had arrived with the rain.
Within a few days word started coming in from Iron Gate that large numbers of salmon were showing up at the hatchery. I fished there last Friday with Fish Sniffer Editor Dan Bacher and Guide Albert Kutzkey, and on Saturday and Sunday on the Fish Sniffer driftboat with my father and Guide Dave Castellanos. You can read Dan's article, Big Numbers of Salmon Joined By Steelhead On Klamath River here. Suffice it to say, the fishing was absolutely incredible. I literally couldn't remember how many fish I had caught at the end of the day. My largest was around 30 pounds and I lost one bigger than that who managed to saw through the leader after a 20-minute battle. The fishing should remain hot through next week. 
Get Ready for Steelhead Fantastic fishing on the Klamath doesn't end with the salmon run. The steelhead are already beginning to show up at Iron Gate and there are wild rainbows in the river also. These fish remain very aggressive through mid December when water temperatures drop. Twenty fish days are not uncommon. I use 5-6 wt. fly rods and the fish usually average about 4 pounds. The action is non-stop and the aerobatics these steelhead display during the fight never ceases to amaze me. The hot setup is a nymph drifted about fifty feet in front of the boat on a sinking tip line. This will get the fly down about four feet as you slowly work the slots. The best bugs to use are the Brindle Bug, Red Butted Skunk, and the Ugly Bug, but have something orange in the box just in case. You'll want to use rather large flys, size 4-8, to keep the smaller fish off your line.
The Klamath during the fall may be California's best-kept fishing secret. It's less than 6 hours from the Bay Area and a little over 4 hours from Sacramento.You are allowed to keep one fin clipped steelhead a day and you must use barbless hooks. If you would like to fly fish steelhead, Albert will be running trips through mid December. |
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For a slow day, the fishing was pretty good. I managed three steelhead over 10 pounds, two salmon around twenty, and a jack. What I was really impressed with was the size of the fish. In a normal year, all would be considered whoppers!
Ugly Bug
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