October 11th 2024

Lately on most river systems we've been playing the game "how low can we go" most of our river systems haven't seen rain in over 2 weeks. Any that have, never got any real rain water in the headwater sections. This has left the rivers in very rough shape for our migratory fish. Most runs are a week or so behind and have been small steady trickles of fish with no real pushes. Cooler nights have helped bring water temps down and bring in more salmon and a few early steelhead in the lower state rivers.

Despite the conditions fishing has still been good and fish are still being caught. All systems have spawning fish right now and the trout are eager to take eggs Indy rigged or euro nymphed behind them. Brighter orange, red, and clown have been some of our favorites. Kings are still aggressive and can be taken with streamers, Indy, swung or chucked, pick your poison they all work. Slimming down on tippet size has been the biggest contributor to fish in the net. Low water often means clear water. Migratory fish go through an enormous amount of angling pressure and sometimes it's as simple as downsize line sizes that makes your presentation stand out.

The low water presents a lot of opportunities for the wading anglers. A lot of anglers are now able to take advantage of the low water and find new holes and fish areas that were out of reach before. From a boat use caution and use the time to find buckets and cuts that aren't normally visible. Some of my best spots are areas that I found in low water periods that other anglers drive right by at normal levels.

In the coming weeks I would expect the salmon run to be later and continue to be a steady trickle of fish. I believe that the steelhead run will be good this year. There are a lot of fish staging by the river mouths of the lake and we are starting to find a few in our rivers. Lately our focus has been on the migratory fish but bass pike and carp are still rocking.

We've got some new 101 classes and are starting up with steelhead 101 classes again so check out our schedule and RSVP. Classes are FREE and will fast track you a lot quicker that watching YouTube. If you're looking for a guided trip we only have the 28th and 30th left open for salmon this month. November steelhead is also filling fast.

Good luck out there and tight lines - Capt. Matt