Report: Lower Stanislaus

The night before leaving on another Lower Stanislaus trip, I looked over sat maps to see if there was some new water to fish. As much as I love this river, it can get tiresome going to the same runs every time.

Arrived to the Tulloch access prior to daylight. After gearing up I wanted to warm up at the dam. However, upon getting there, I found out that they turned off the spigot on the road side. That pretty much screwed up my plan to fish this area. It might as well of been a lake, the water was still as could be. Since I don't dead drift under an indicator, there just wasn't enough current to suit my style. No matter how many fish may be lurking under the surface.

The water was flowing out of the far side, so I decided to have a look. This would be my first time over there, so I wanted to check it out. I crossed river and walked up to the side stream that flows out of that side of the dam. There wasn't a lot of access, so I decided to skip it. Opting instead to walk down river along side the empty canals that parallel.

I walked a long ways and was high above river. The drop down to the water was too steep. Here we are, a couple hours into the day and my line has yet to get wet! The view was beautiful and that was enough to keep hiking.


I'm not sure how far I went. But it was a ways. I was deep into the canyon that stretches between Tulloch and Two-Mile. There looked to be some good water below me, but it just was too hairy to attempt getting down there. So, I didn't bother. All in all, I probably spent 2 or 3 hours walking and enjoying the pleasant weather.

Eventually, I decided to turn around and head back. I'm pretty sure I could of walked all the way to Two-Mile, but never did. I bet it wasn't that much further from where I stopped.

Before getting all the way back to where I originally crossed the river, I scrambled down some rocks and found a spot to fish. I've been here before. But the water was so low, it looked quite a bit different. If there were fish around, they weren't biting.


Fishing was slow throughout the day. I saw a handful of other fly fisherman and none of them were catching anything. They seemed surprised when I told them that I caught a few small ones under 12 inches, and to me, on this river, that is a really slow day. This was quite the contrast from my previous trip. On that outing, fish were rising all over the place. I could see them just about everywhere I looked. Today, there were no risers and I didn't see any swimming around.

Eventually I found myself at Two Mile. I took the usual circuit. No luck whatsoever. I didn't see any fish either. Which is odd. I normally see them here and there. A couple of hours later, I was downstream quite a ways and finally saw some fish. They were all hiding 4 or 5 feet down in large rocky cover. They were eating. That was a good sign. I tried for them, but had no luck. I decided to move on after about 15 minutes of swapping flies and techniques.

Instead of giving you a play by play of each run I went to, I'll just say I covered the river pretty thoroughly. I tried quite the number of fly patterns. Soft hackles, wet flies, nymphs. Sizes ranged from 10-18. These were not working. After throwing on the bigger flies, I started to get more takers. I caught a few fish in the 15 inch range on size 6-10 marabou flies. These have worked in the past on difficult days and again, they produced a few fish. The largest was approximately 18 inches long and took a black marabou with a purple guinea collar. It was swung on a 3.9 ips sink tip and the takes were almost all on the beginning of the swing.

It was a slow, but enjoyable day. I gave up as the sun was setting and I could no longer see the fly line easily. Spey casting in the dark is not a good idea as far as I'm concerned, so that was reason enough to call it quits.

As I was stepping out of the water, I saw a large steelhead that someone had gutted right there at the river. Keep in mind this is a catch and release area. Poachers! They really tick me off. I measured the wild fish at 32 inches. The largest steelhead I've seen on the Stanislaus. Too bad his life was taken by someone who has no regard for the regulations.