Western Water

I’m learning, more and more, that any plans to do with fishing or rivers need to be somewhat fluid. 

About 10 years ago, my buddy Noel and I were heading back to CA from Colorado, looking for places to adventure along the way. We checked in with a fly shop in Summit County and were told that the fishing was currently ‘sick’ on The Green River below the Flaming Gorge Dam in Utah. We had never before heard any fishing described as sick, so had to check it out. As it happens it was just all-time and sick for sure.

The Green boasts as many as 15k fish per mile – just a ridiculous amount – and in late May/early June the river has a cicada hatch of (sometimes) epic proportions. After those first three days on the river, I was absolutely blown away and knew I had to get back.

This year my dad and I tried to plan a trip to The Green around the spring flush, where the Bureau of Reclamation bumps dam flows up from a trout and boat friendly 800 cfs, to a blasting 4,500 cfs for a few weeks to simulate a ‘natural’ (pre-dam) runoff. Unfortunately there is no schedule for this event, and Reclamation just gives few days notice about timing. In 2010 my trip was moved from the river because we scheduled last week in May which that year coincided with the flush. This year, to make sure we were not affected by the flush we planned our trip in early June – the week which ended up being the week of flush this year. I’ll keep trying, but yet again The Green had plans of its own.

So, we changed gears and set out on a more local adventure, to see some of the various rivers closer to home, up in Northern California and Southern Oregon – a bit of a Western Water Tour. Though a proper tour of the West would take years, we definitely saw some goods in our short time on the road.

Our seven days out fishing were each spectacular in their own right, and the water we visited couldn’t have been more varied. My father and I towed both the raft and new drift boat out of Tahoe to find wide, small & roaring rivers up North.

First stop was to the most Southern part of Oregon to the technical rapids of the Upper Klamath, which drops 50 feet per mile and has an insanely hard fighting strain of redband trout. After two days of hard fighting fish and pulling hard on the sticks, we headed South to meet Maher on the beautiful, emerald-green McCloud river with it's little rainbows eager for an evening dry fly. And our final destination, to the large volume, Lower Sac with it’s tough fighting, monster bow’s. 

From raft to foot to drift boat, up and down a spectacular part of the Western coastal states, this was an epic late planned trip for sure.

Arrived and loaded in at camp – we pack a little bit heavy

For our shuttle from put in to takeout and back again, and again we logged quite a bit of time on dirt

Dad and rig about to get in it at put in

A look back at the first technical rapid just below the dam

One of dad's nice, hard-fighting redband's

Dad releasing another nice one 

Me with one of mine

The second half of the final rapid of the day took us all the way to the lake

Evening light at our campsite

Cooking up some dinner

Dad with another good one on, nailed right out of the faster water

Dad releasing another good fish

We were amazed by the great abundance of birdlife on the river, including these white pelicans

Some more birdlife – lots of youngeons around

Catch of the trip was my hat which took a dip as we were anchored up on a rock – great cast and retrieval dad

Some bumpy and gnarly roads after a great day on the river

Insane views of the back side of Shasta as we make our way South

Stunning Northern Cali views

Good food and a good cocktail after the long drive from the takeout on The Klamath to camp on the McCloud

Familiar face at camp on the McCloud

Maher getting a serious fire going

Wading with the pup on the very different water of The McCloud

Pretty little 'bow taken on a dry fly

Dad getting some dry fly fishing in under some evening light in the canyon

Maher getting fajita night going

Dad getting into some tight spaces to hook a trout

Maher working a nice spot

Made it to the Lower Sac and got Driftwood in the water – beautiful boat with beautiful Sundial Bridge

Dad hooked up a lot of fish this trip

Dad with a nice 'bow

Releasing another good trout

Me with a bullet of a hog

This was a sight I had to get used to

We caught many 20+ inch fish, including this nice 21" pig

Dad in Driftwood with another

One of the prettier ones I got in

And lots of safe releases

We had Aaron in the boat with us for one of our three days – master of the river & on the sticks

Just huge and fun fighting fish on this river

We didn't have many but one of our double hookups for the trip