Fishing Report Sacramento River Shasta Lake Rogue River Salmon Trout Shad IGFA Certified Captain Fly Fishing

Salmon King Lodge UPDATE
We moved into our Rogue River house this past week. We can see salmon and steelhead running through a shallow riffle in the evening from our neighbor's deck. The lower Rogue is quite a place. We have way more work to do on the house than we ever imagined, but that is what winter is for!! We are starting to fish and catch a combination of adult salmon and half pound steelhead. It will only get better all the way through September for the salmon and through October for the steelhead.

Going forward, we plan to spend our July - October on the Rogue fishing for big ocean fresh kings through the summer and early fall and switch over to silvers and steelhead in late Sept. and October. We will return to Red Bluff to fish the late fall king trophy fishery through December and fly fish for wild rainbows and steelhead on the Sacramento until mid-April when we will return to the Rogue for Springers.

2010 Fall Schedule:
Aug 24 - late October we will be targeting ocean fresh kings on the lower Rogue near Gold Beach, OR. We still have great dates open on the Rogue, but they are filling fast. We will return in late October to run wild trout and steelhead fly fishing trips on the Sacramento through mid-November when we will switch over to the trophy late fall king salmon run on the Sacramento.

Rogue Salmon - Main River and Estuary - Water temps have cooled and salmon are running the river. The salmon upper right was caught yesterday 15 miles upstream from the estuary side drifting roe while the netting pic far left was taken today in the estuary. Success in the estuary has been up and down. Deconstruction of Gold Ray Dam is causing higher than normal flows and turbidity. We expect this all to get better over the next few weeks. We still have good openings for the remainder of the season. We will travel with the salmon wherever they go, so one day we may be fishing the estuary and the next up-river. As always, we will do our best to provide you with a fun and productive day.

Rogue River Steelhead Fly Fishing - Numbering the the hundreds of thousands, and ranging from 12" - 20" this run of steelhead is better defined as catching rather than fishing. Hungrily gobbling up bugs early and egg imitations later in the season, these feisty fish make for an exciting day on the water. Mixed in with these hot 1- 4 lb. fish are good numbers of adult 6 - 10 lb. steelhead. We have dates open in late Sept. and Oct. to target the Rogue's legendary "half pounder" steelhead run. Sign up for our mailing list above to get a smoking hot introductory deal on steelhead fishing in our next newsletter.

Sacramento River Steelhead & Wild Trout Fly and Conventional Gear Fishing - We will return to this fishery in late October. Our guide partners and other guests have the Salmon King Lodge guesthouse booked Aug - Oct 16.

Shasta Lake Landlocked Salmon and Trout -We will not be on Shasta until next spring. On our last trips, salmon were caught on bait soaked in Pautzke's Nectar behind Seps Watermelon and Fruit Salad dodgers.

Sacramento River Salmon -Sacramento Salmon Season Update:
The CA Fish & Game Commission made its final decision on the Sacramento River salmon season in mid-May. The season will be open from Anderson (Deschutes River Bridge) to Knights Landing with a 2 fish limit Oct 9 - Oct 31. On Nov 1st, the river will close to salmon fishing north of the Red Bluff Diversion Dam, but remain open until Dec 12 from the Diversion Dam to Knights Landing.
We expect another disastrous fall run this year on the Sac. At a time of year when we should be seeing hundreds of salmon crossing the Red Bluff Diversion Dam every day, we are seeing daily numbers ranging from 9 - 49. We will wait for the first rains of November to pull up the late fall run trophy fish before targeting salmon on the Sacramento.

We are pleased to announce that Bill Divens recently became the first IGFA Certified Captain on the northern Sacramento River. In addition to keeping records, the IGFA drives conservation, research and legislative efforts relating to both fresh and salt water fisheries. We are proud to be associated with this fine organization. Click here to learn more about IGFA.

On December 1, 2004, I was fishing with retired guide Herb Wilson below the Bend Bridge in Red Bluff. It was a beautiful cool sunny day and with most of the guides in this area fishing the Barge Hole and environs we had this section of river pretty much to ourselves. We were backtrolling T-60 Flatfish with the autopilot on and had just seen a bald eagle dive into to the River and fly away with a 14” squaw fish.

We were commenting on the gorgeous scenery, no other boats in sight and how salmon fishing is so much more than just catching when my rod tip dove into the water. I hooked the fish and handed it off to Herb. After multiple runs at the boat where we were sure that the fish got off and after a good 5 minutes of lying on the bottom and refusing to move, I looked down into the clear water and saw the T-60 Flatfish looking like a small shiny speck of silver and chartreuse at the front of a huge silvery ghost. After a few hard runs away from the net, we finally landed this 55 lb. chrome beauty. What makes this story really cool is that Herb was the guide that taught me the River in the early 90’s and has since become one of my best friends. A decade ago, I was catching salmon from Herb’s boat. It was really fun to have him catch this monster from mine!

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