McCloud River Fly Fishing Report
McCloud River
After plans for a float trip fell through, there was one river in CA
that I knew I couldn’t pass up for a long weekend getaway to start up
my trout season: The McCloud River. The flows were considerably high
for the time time of year but after all the rain and snow last winter,
this was expected.
The weekend started with sunshine and massive salmon flies and stone
everywhere. We didn’t see many fish rising but the dark lord nymph
game was strong.
Working the water efficiently and covering the ground was mandatory
because the river access in many areas was limited due to high flows.
We fished the accessible stots we could as hard as we could and worked
the holes and deep channels with streamers. The latter paid off with
midday a 21’ brown on the LCO recommended Dali Lama streamer.
On Saturday night the rain came in…hard. It remained on and off rainy
all Sunday and made one clear change to the fish and river: lots of
small mayflies popping and plenty of fish rising. This gave us an
opportunity to tie on some tiny dries that ended up with rewarding us
with more nice fish.
My takeaways:
Its ALWAYS worth the drive.
Plastic Tarps are worth their weight in gold when camping in the rain.
Always bring dry flies… you never know when you will use them.
Browns are aggressive and temperamental meat eaters they will surprise
you with their ability to smash a fast moving big chunky fly.
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