About the only thing that has been consistent with 2013, is it has been consistently inconsistent. Strange year, this fall season is one of the driest on record, less than 3” rain since July, creating prolonged low-gin clear steelheading conditions. As if conditions weren’t challenging enough, weather gods delivered the flip side and sent a round of artic air and freezing temps that settled into our neck of the woods for a week.Br-r-r, just when you thought steelheading could not get any more challenging, the deep freeze quickly dropped Trinity R. water temps below 36 degrees. Simply brutal and challenging the elements were difficult enough; as for fishing, man you really had to want it!

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Never fails. Wash my truck and post a blog about how dry it has been and it rains! Well if that is what it takes to shake up the heavens—- then it’s hotter than a rooster in a hen house on fire and I’ll suds my truck and polish the bumpers in my dreams. Finally some reprieve from a severely dry seven week high pressure!

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No rain since September, temps are ten- fifteen degrees above normal (78 degrees on the shop deck as of this post), extended fire season, headwater lakes have been drained, the Trinity R. is low (it’s bones are exposed and rocks polished with aluminum), spring birds (Meadowlarks, killdeers, Dove, Humming birds)are sounding off and hanging around, frogs croaking, deer plentiful and grazing on whatever is green, bear are eluding hibernation and still scavenging along the river corridor, spring aquatics (Tricos/Beatis/Callibeatis) are popping and resident trout and steelhead are taking advantage of the emerging bon-bons. What first appeared to be an abnormally wet and wild fall-winter has shifted into reverse, the weather gods are delivering northern California’s driest fall on record. Why? Where are we headed and what does all this mean?

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Thanks for the calls and e-mails regarding our last post. We are stoked to witness an increasing number of anglers desiring to learn and fly fish traditional steelhead methods; simply a natural progression. On that note, time and time again we are asked what are our favorite fall steelhead flies, complimenting traditional methods, and what water compositions do they apply? First, keep in mind steelhead are unpredictable at best so almost anything goes. However during the fall season try to inventory fly selections that compliment time of year and mood of the river/fish; varied lighting conditions, low clear waters, bug hatches, salmon spawning, etc.. Inventory both weighted and unweighted flies to cover a variety of waters and depths. Fly styles and dressings should also complement waters; smaller size, sparse dressings use for low sensitive conditions and save the full meat-potatoes, large, heavily dressed flies for larger broken waters, getting down deep and off color situations. Although not itched in stone, a good old steelheaders fly selection rule of thumb is: dark day, use dark fly, bright day use bright fly. When in doubt, follow your gut instincts and dig’m out.

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