Early Season--Fishing Forecast

Saturday, April 27th is Opening Day on our mountain trout streams. Read below for conditions on each individual stream.

McCloud River: The lower McCloud is running at 750cfs at Ah-di-na, which is high but still fishable in certain areas. Normal summer flows are in the 250cfs range. Fishing should be good if flows drop, but this river could get much higher if the weather warms up and snow starts melting.

Hat Creek: Having consistent spring-fed flows, Hat Creek is a good albeit all too popular destination on the opener. Target the fast-moving riffles for the easiest fishing. Look for hatches of giant stoneflies in the riffles and PMDs in the flat water.

Fall River: We anticipate a pretty normal opener on Fall River. Weedbeds aren't very established just yet, so look for fish in the deeper holes and runs with structure. Opening weekend is fun because you can catch fish on 5X tippet instead of the regular 6X tippet! Fish are pretty dispersed during the early season, so keep moving to find fish. Fishing usually improves mid- to late-May as post-spawn fish return to the river and begin feeding.

Upper Sac: The Upper Sac is currently at 3500cfs at Delta. That is a whitewater rafting flow, not a fishing flow! Fishing gets good once flows at Delta drop below 800cfs.

Pit River: The entire Pit River is currently blown out with releases of 5000cfs in the Pit 3 reach and even higher flows downstream. It could be mid-May before this river comes into shape.

Bristol Bay and Pebble Mine Update--An Important Analysis from Flyfishers Int'l

Mt Tam Flyfishers is an FFI member club.  This video explains why you and we must continue to protect against the rapacious owners of the Pebble Mine properties.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cvhHNPWFdWA

FLY OF THE MONTH

Perdigon Fly (Spanish Fly)

This is a competition fly, designed by members of the Spanish FF Team for use in the World Championships after having been out of the top 5 placers in 2014.  In 2015 in Bosnia, the Spanish barely beat the U.S. to win the World FF Championships, with many of their team using this Perdigon fly.  In 2016, here in the U.S. at the World FF Championships, the Spanish eked out a victory over the 2nd place French team to win it all, with the U.S. placing 3rd.  For 2017, the French team all used this fly almost exclusively in the river portions of the competition, and won the championship over 2nd place Czech Rep. and 3rd place Spain.  The following year, 2018, at the World Championships in Italy, the Spanish Team Captain had their whole team using this Perdigon exclusively and again won the championship over the 2nd place Czech team and 3rd place Italy, with the U.S. in 4th.

This is a small (so trout are less discriminating) but weighted fly (so it gets right to the bottom quickly) which is built on a jig hook (with the weight below the eye, this insures the point rides in an up position, thus reducing snags).  As this international competition has taught us, using small competition nymphs tied on jig hooks = far more fish in your net!

Hook:  Competition Jig hook, size 16

Bead:  Tungsten slotted bead 3.3 mm

Wt:     3-4 wraps of .010 or ,015 lead, shoved up into back of beadhead

Thread:  Red, 70 denier

Tail:   5-6 barbs of Pheasant tail or Coq de Leon

underbody:  small Gold tinsel

overbody:  ribbing of stripped peacock quill, wrapped about 1/2 quill width apart

wingcase:  spot of black Sharpie on same side as hook eye

coating;  2-3 coats of Sally Hansen Hard-As-Nails

Pebble Mine Would Put America Last

In a shocking about-face, the EPA has agreed to drop proposed restrictions that would have banned construction of the Pebble Mine in Alaska.  This move paves the way for Northern Dynasty Minerals, - the Canadian company behind the mine and which has a terrible record of devastating spills and toxic releases – to seek permits for building the massive copper and gold mine in the pristine headwaters of Bristol Bay, where it would imperil the world’s largest run of Sockeye Salmon.    The EPA Administrator, Scott Pruitt, made this decision after a half-hour meeting with the mining company CEO, and shocked all the remaining scientists in the EPA who have spent years researching this proposal and have unanimously concluded it would be a disaster and would ‘irreversibly’ destroy one of the most pristine and productive locations on the planet.

Just weeks after the EPA reversal, fishermen in Bristol Bay were reporting near-record levels for this year’s Salmon run, a testament to the strength of the $1.5 billion sustainable fishery that supports 14,000 local jobs and is central to the culture of Native peoples in SW Alaska.  The colossal open pit Pebble Mine, which would be as deep as the Grand Canyon and generate 10 billion tons of toxic mining waste, was stopped in 2014 when the EPA study (twice peer reviewed) said the mine posed catastrophic risks to the Bristol Bay watershed.  One of the main problems lies in the fact that the huge earth dam which will hold most of the toxic tailings lies almost on top of an active Earthquake fault.   “In keeping with the Trump Administration’s pro-polluter, pro-extraction agenda, the EPA has utterly abandoned sound science and the people of Bristol Bay”, said Taryn Heimer, a scientist with NRDC’s Land and Wildlife program, which organization partnered with hundreds of grassroots organizations to convince the government to stop it in 2014.   More than 80% of local residents oppose the Pebble Mine.   To push the message, “No Pebble Mine.  Not now.  Not ever.”  go to <nrdc.org/stoppebble

The fish thank you.

Current Fishing Report

http://www.blog.lostcoastoutfitters.com/tagged/fishingreport

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