March Steelhead

Since my last report, I fished a number of days on the Smith River. Fishing here was scratchy for me. Two hookups a day was typical.

On sunday, I moved down to the South Fork Eel, where I turned up some downrunners up high on the system. I kinda felt that fishing up here was a little mediocre.

This week I worked a couple of days with a big group and another guide. We switched river systems altogether and we found some good fishing with a mix of bright and downrunning steelhead.

The rain we recieved yesterday will knock our rivers out for a couple of days but they should be back in by early to mid next week. I expect fishing to be good when the rivers come back around. I do have space for this week, so let me know if your interested in some uncrowded and productive steelhead fishing.

Mike

Humboldt Fishing

I spent close to a week and a half down on our Humboldt County rivers. I started out fishing the South Fork Eel for four days where fishing was ok. 2 to 7 hookups a day was the range here. These fish were a mix of downstreamers and fresh fish with a ratio of about 70:30 in favor of downers. I relocated to other rivers starting last sunday due to the excessive crowds on the south fork. My move intitially got me into more crowds unfortunately, but that improved over the week as we made other adjustments. I ended up having my biggest day of the winter on Tuesday as we hooked 16 and landed 11, most of which were chrome bright.

Tuesday evening the rain returned and I was back on the Smith yesterday. Fishing was pretty tough for the day. We put one on the boat and I saw only one other fish hooked and lost for the rest of the fleet, although I did here of a few others caught.

Anyways, here are a few pics I took since the last report. Unfortunately my camera disappeared for a couple of days, so no pics were taken for most of the week. Thats what happens when you have a toddler running around the house!

As a side note, I have an opening for sunday, which looks to fish good for the Smith. Let me know if your interested.

Mike

Smith 2/2-2/9

Wet weather has continued our winter fishing on the Smith. Fish have continued to consistently come in, but I personally have been in an interesting pattern. It seems that every other day for the last week I have a tough day while the next day I am one of the top scores on the river. This up and down experience has been a little frustrating for me. Sometimes in life we get in strange grooves, but eventually they work themselves out, just as this one will.
That being said, We have been catching some beautiful fish, with a big fish for the week a 16 pound buck caught by Mike Davis. Mike and his fishing partner, Richard Spears caught some other quality chrome steelhead that day including a 13 and 14 lb hen and buck, respectively. Above are some pics from that day, and others from the week.

It looks like another weather system is coming in on thursday, and will again make it tough for our humboldt county rivers to fish. Hopefully we get a crack at them at some point this year.

Mike

Fishing good, river clear

I fished yesterday on a clear and quiet river. There weren't many boats around, but there were plenty of fish! Our boat went 5 for 6 hookups with a handful of double digit fish including the one pictured above. My trip for today fell through, but I'll be back on the river tommorrow. See you out there.
Mike

Smith Continues

I started the week in high water and tough fishing. As the river dropped fishing improved. However, yesterday was a bit of a struggle. With clearing condtions on the river and relatively crowded conditions, fishing seemed tough. We only ended up with one fish and I didn't hear of any really good scores, lots of 1s and 2s.

The weather pattern is starting to clear up and we may have opportunity to fish in humboldt county by Tuesday or Wednesday. The Smith will continue to drop and clear and this may mean tough fishing, but you never know. We'll let you know how it goes.

Mike

Solid Smith Action

I've been up on the Smith since this last series of storms has hit and fishing has been good. Depending on the day, we've been hooking between 2 and 6 fish a day. Yesterday we fished in high water and had a short day, but we still hooked 3 nice steelhead. Not bad considering conditions and the short time we had on the river. The Smith has been fishing good this January, unlike the last couple of years, so our year is off to a good start.
Coming up, it looks like Sunday will potentially blow out, but the rest of the week looks like we will have solid fishing conditions a good fishing. I do have space this week, so don't hesitate to give me a call if you want to catch some of these chrome beauties. Above are some pics from the last week of fishing.
Mike
707-601-8757

Storm Coming

I fished some days in Humboldt county this week and fishing was decent. The fish were all super bright and very mean. It looks like we're going to get some weather here starting tommorrow and tuesday. This will mean that I will be headed back to the Smith later this week. I still have space for the next couple of weeks so if you're interested give us a call or email and we can set something up.
Mike
707-601-8757

Great Start

I fished the Smith yesterday and it was a wonderful sight. Fishing was great, as we hooked 8 and landed 6 chromers. While we had a good day, we were not the only ones to experiece good fishing. Lots of bent rods and nets flying all day! It was great to see after a couple of pretty slow years on this river. This bodes well for a great steelhead season!

Starting tommorrow, I'll be back in humoldt county. All the rivers down here are starting to fish, and with it being early January, fishing should be great. I'll let you know how it goes.

For those of you interested in fishing, give me a call. I do have space available this week, and this is prime time!

Mike

Lots of Salmon on the Coast

I stayed pretty busy the month of November. The fall salmon run on the Smith has been an excellent one. Overall, fishing has been great, with lots of big, quality fish.
It is fabulous to see spawning salmon everywhere on the river. This doesn't mean that the run is over, however. I think we still have a week or two of quality, bright fish if we get some more water. We will also see some more steelhead start to enter the river along with the last part of the salmon run. This can be some fun mixed bag fishing in uncrowded conditions. I have space in december, so give me a call and lets go catch some beautiful fish!
Above are some photos from the last couple of weeks of fishing.
Mike

More big salmon coming

Trinity and Klamath season is winding down now. We've been experiencing challenging fishing on these rivers since the shot of rain we recieved a couple of weeks ago. That being said, I've still managed to catch adult salmon or steelhead everyday on the water, including some very large salmon on the Trinity.
Speaking of very large salmon, it is soon to be that time again on the Smith as soon as we see another shot of rain. The storm we recieved this month triggered some of the most epic salmon fishing I have ever seen. I spent a day on the smith after the rain and literally spent more time unhooking fish in the net than fishing! All were large fish, with five of them over the 30lb mark and a couple of those pushing 40. All were very bright fish. Pics from that day are seen above.
Once we get some more rain, I expect more great fishing as the word is there are lots of 'em down in the tidewater reaches.
Mike