Trip Report: Feather River

A week or two ago, I became the proud owner of a new spey rod. Instead of building another, I decided to simply purchase a 6-weight. Ever since, I've been itching to try it out somewhere other than the casting pool. The original plan called for a trip to the Yuba. However, the flows were much too high and I figured this would be an excellent opportunity to visit the Feather.

I've never been here before, so I went through my usual intelligence gathering. Satellite maps, flow reports, fishing reports, and contacting some people that have been there. It was decided to try the area between the hatchery and Palm Ave.

At early morning, pre-dark, I entered through one of the many gates to the wildlife off Larkin. The road was nothing more than gravel and rock. Pretty darn bumpy and rough. A maze of unmarked trails made for some navigation problems. However, my first stop was pretty easy to find.

This river is big! The sat maps don't do it justice. Even with my two hander, there was no way I could cast across the whole thing. So, I concentrated on what I could reach. Started with just the leader out of the tip and swung a generic soft hackle with a larger size 4 steelhead fly with black flowing spey hackles. Both were attached to a couple of feet of mono and then a 7ips sinking leader.

Didn't see any signs of life, but the river looked fishy enough. I slowly inched out more line on each cast. Eventually, I was casting out 60 or so feet, swinging it down, letting it hang, followed by a few steps down the river. This went on for a while. No bumps, no bites. Nothing. Birds were out, diving into the river for what I assumed were fish. So I kept at it until the river got too deep to comfortably wade.

Not long after, I chose to crawl up the bank and back into the car. The road was easy to follow since I could just hug the river, but it required slow-going. After spotting another fishy looking spot, I started swinging again. By this time, the wind was whipping along at 15 or more mph. I'm not sure what it is, but anytime I plan for a day on the river, it gets windy. Today was no exception.

After a few wind knots, I had the line swinging 60-70 feet out. There were no boulders or any other targets to aim for. It was a wide open search and destroy mission. I prefer targeting fish holding spots, but these larger rivers make it difficult at times. As usual, I tried to position myself so that my downstream dangle was on a current seam. Just in case someone was lurking on the slow side waiting for food to flow down the fast side.

About 10 minutes and 50 tangles later (lots of debris in the water), I felt a bump in the heart of the swing. I resisted the urge to set the hook and just let the fly swing further. Just as the fly came to the end of the swing-- WHAM, the fish hit a second time. He followed the fly a pretty good distance, at least 30 feet. The line went tight and the fish took off for the middle of the river.

This was the first time catching a fish on this rod, so I wasn't familiar with how it would feel. But it felt like a big fish. He wasn't peeling line off, however, at 65 feet out, it was rather challenging to maneuver him back to the slower water.

This is the fly that caught the first fish of the day.

At some point I caught a glimpse and noticed he was pretty good size. A few minutes later I had him to hand and put him up to my rod for a measurement. Earlier, before leaving home, I measured from the butt of my second grip to the top of my first. It is 23 inches. This hatchery fish stretched slightly beyond. I'd guess he was 24-25 inches and bulky. He took the size 4 spey fly and after removing it, I set him free. It was only 9am, and this would be the last bite I'd have until the afternoon.

It is a blur to me now, but at some point I got back in the car and drove further upstream. The road got worse and it became harder to figure out which direction to go. Not one, but two and a half HOURS later I was fishing again. I did a lot of really slow driving trying to find a place to fish. Nada.

I decided to check out the fish hatchery up near the dam. What a fish-ladder. If you haven't been here before, you've got to check that thing out. It is quite the run. Someday I'm going to come back here with my wife and son, we'll check out the rearing ponds and the underwater viewing area. I was too eager to start fishing again to bother today.

I drove more and more. Good thing I laid out a ton of potential fishing spots mapped out the night before. Those roads in the wildlife area are a major time waster. Next time, I'll go in and out of a few gates, but not drive through the area any further than I have too. It is just too time consuming. Unless you have a beater of a car, it pays to drive a little slower to avoid the dents (some sections of bigger looser stone requires 4wd and a high clearance, be careful if you have a 2wd car).

Eventually I found a spot to fish again. It had been so slow, that I looked for deeper, slower water. I even put on an absolutely huge split shot on and two heavy flies to get down. It didn't help. No bites.

I wandered downstream to this really neat little spot. It was very hard to get to, and you had to balance carefully on these rocks, but the water looked so fishy. I spent quite a bit of time here with no results. Even though fish were starting to rise for bugs, I couldn't fool anyone. Out of casting range, I saw an absolutely huge trout jump out of the water. It was quite the sight to behold. If it weren't so windy, I'd be able to target the rising fish more easily.

I decided to go back to the car for some food. It was probably 3pm by now. After the long walk up a steep hill, I chose to get in and drive somewhere else instead of walk back to the river to a spot that wasn't producing. Besides, this was a day for exploring anyway.

I found this island that looked absolutely incredible. Such a great place to fish. Unfortunately, I couldn't get out to it. Not that I didn't try. There was this narrow strip deep water keeping me from crossing. I was very disappointed. If the water was slightly lower, I could of made it.

Discouraged, I walked downstream to end of that island. When the two forks joined again, there was a swirl of current. Far out into the river, the two swirls met and made this great back eddy. The water just seemed to stop here. I was thinking that this had to hold fish. How can I get to it? Sure enough, a few minutes later I saw fish rising. I tried different angles and casting to various drifts to try and get into the slow water. But the current on either side was pulling my fly out.

The answer was to wade a little further upriver and cast at a very awkward angle, down and across. I had to put out 70-90 feet of line to get to it. On that very first successful cast, where my fly just sat in the slow water-- WHAM! I scrambled back out of the current to slower water where I could bring the fish in. This guy measured about 22 inches. He put up a good fight.

I worked this eddy for a while. There was a 45 minute or so window when they were hitting on almost every cast. There was also something very big lurking in there. Or maybe several big ones. I lost two flies tied on 8lb mono and had the hook straightened on not one or two, not three, but four flies. The hits were so hard, it was alarming.

A few minutes later, I cast my fly out about 60 feet, lifting the line high out of the water trying to keep it from getting swept in the faster current, the fly swung almost in a dead drift as I fed running line in to keep it drifting beyond 90 feet. Smack! Hit again. But this time, the hook didn't bend, he was staying on.

Instead of running away from me, he came flying towards me. I stripped in line as fast as I could to try and keep it tight. Before you knew it, I had about 50-60 feet of running line under my feet. This was not good. It was a big fish and I wanted to use the reel. I reeled in the slack, but it got so bunched up from being loose, that my reel got jammed with line tangles. Somehow I kept the line tight and untangled the running line from my reel at the same time. I carefully waded over to the slack water.

I worked the fish to my hand that was in the water waiting for him. A tailed him, but when I tried to pick him up, my hands were so shakey. I've never been like that before, I was physically shaking from the adrenaline. I couldn't keep a grip on him. Maybe he felt my moment of weakness and had another spurt of energy. He took off between my legs. Sure enough, he had looped the tippet around my boot and the line broke. Buh bye. :( If I were to guess, he was upper 20's. But, it was hard to say for sure. At least mid 20's. Whatever size he was, the excitement gave me the shakes and he got the better of me. Good for him.

This section was very productive. Over the course of an hour or two, I caught 5 fish. None of them were under 20 inches. I lost several more and had some really big grabs. Still, I decided to move on before it got dark.

Further downstream, I found another good looking spot, but didn't have any luck. Between it getting dark and the swarm of mosquitoes that were attacking me, it was time to go.

This was a unique experience. It is the only time I can recall that I caught this many fish and not one was under 20 inches in length. Normally, I'd get a few small guys. Happily, I'd take that next time out.