Fishing Articles

 I wish all a great Christmas and a Happy New Year with some great winter steelhead fishing. It is winter steelhead fishing time and the weather is making travel hard up here on the north coast. Both Highway 299 and 96 are having rock slides causing travel difficulties. Hwy 299 is seeing small rock slides and lots of rocks on...
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The Future of Salmon is in Jeopardy We’re staring down the barrel of a salmon and environmental threat we haven’t seen since the early 2000’s which led to the first ever closure of the state’s salmon fishery. The shutdown happened after water diversions from the SF Bay Delta increased by about 16 percent starting in 2000. They drained so much water out of the bay...
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Chetco/Elk/Sixes Salmon fishing has been slow on the Chetco since it opened last Saturday according to Andy Martin of Wild Rivers Fishing. “I drifted from the South Fork on Tuesday, focusing on steelhead, and found a few half-pounders up high, said Martin. “Lots of salmon are spawning in the riffles. A few adult steelhead have been caught on the lower river,...
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“Fishing is pretty slow right now on the Smith,” said Mike Coopman of Mike Coopman’s Guide Service. “There’s still a few salmon on the lower end of the river, but I didn’t see much upriver on Wednesday. There hasn’t been much in the way of steelhead yet, but hopefully that will change with the next round of storms on the...
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The Mad was open to fishing as of Wednesday, but it could close Thursday morning if there isn’t sufficient rain to increase flows. There’s been a handful of nice steelhead caught, but no big numbers entering the river as of yet. Minimum flows to keep the river open to fishing are 200 cfs.

Flows are good on the main stem, but it’s still on the dirty side. The flows were just above 2,300 cfs on the Scotia gauge on Wednesday afternoon, but predicted to rise starting Thursday morning. The river is forecasted to peak Friday afternoon and will likely remain blown out for the weekend and into next week. Minimum flows to keep...
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