* Trinity River - Mid December
The day started out great. Before we started the float, the guide wanted to go over some casting and drift techniques. We walked the raft up about 20 feet up from where we launched to practice in this short run. After about three minutes, I turned a steelhead but he came off.
We stepped the raft down about 10 feet and another few casts later, I hooked a real nice fish. Fought it for about 10 minutes and landed a nice sized hatchery buck about 8 pounds. A few minutes later, my guide hooked into another fish while showing me how to get a good drift. He handed me the rod but that one jumped off. We could have stayed but had to get on with the float to catch up with another guide and boat. So, in about 20 minutes, even before the float started, we hooked three steelhead and landed one. Certainly, this was going to be an epic day. Unfortunately, that was the most excitement all day. About four hours later, I landed a small, wild half-pounder. Weather was very cold and snowy in the morning but it wasn't bad as long as the wind laid down.
On the next day, I went to where we launched and fished the same hole. No grabs. Then I went to the takeout and still nothing. I headed to one of my "usual" spots, after about five or six casts, the indicator went under and up comes a pretty nice steelhead. He does about three or four jumps and I got him about on the reel and he headed to the bank and kinda sat there. I kept the rod tip high and was starting to walk toward him then "ping" the flies came out. Bummer. Fished till about noon and left after that. - Larry Schork
* O'Neill ForeBay - Dec. 7th
Tom Bradley and his son Pearson took Sam Bishop out in their boat on the Forebay early on Sunday, Dec 7th. It was COLD and fishing started slowly, until late morning when it warmed up. But then we followed the birds and boated (and released) about 25 Stripers, all nice ones. Pearson caught three or four of the biggest. - Tom Bradley
* Klamath River - Early December
With noted northern California guide Craig Nielsen at the oars, Chris Walters and I spent a glorious early December day drifting the Klamath River for winter steelhead. Chris had won the free guided trip with Craig at our annual fundraiser last January. I was lucky just to tag along. Craig had rigged us up with a nymphing combination of "legs and eggs" plus a size 10 prince nymph. The "legs" fly was a size 12 black rubber-legged stonefly. The "eggs" fly was an Alaskan bead egg just above a bare hook. Our leader and tippet were 3x. Craig, like most guides now, used the "thingamabobber" as our indicators.
The weather was seasonal, partly cloudy with temps in the low 20's to start the day and rapidly climbing to the mid 50's by noon.
Most of the steelhead we landed were typical of the Klamath River variety ranging from 4-6lbs. Not as large as their Trinity River cousins, they still displayed all the characteristics of wild, ocean going fish. Chris really got into them after lunch when he had solved the perfect drift riddle. Both of us were trying to adhere to my guidelines for sharing a drift boat that I wrote about in last month's article. We did pretty well performing the difficult caster's waltz with out once snagging our guide. Craig's appreciation was shown by the amount of fish he put us on. Wow, what a day!
Chris was the ideal fishing partner (Editor's note: amen to that!) and Craig was the ultimate guide. If you are looking for a guide for the Klamath, be sure to include Craig Nielsen of Shasta Trout in the list of guides you call. We had Craig as a club guest speaker this past year and he sure gained my respect. Craig will again be a speaker at this year's San Mateo Sportsman Expo and also at the Fly Show in Pleasanton.
Thank you to Craig for the memorable day on the Klamath and to Chris for sharing the boat with me. - Tim Loomis