Central Valley

Lower American River

by Ed Hood March 04, 2014

I greatly enjoy taking people out on the water, teaching them new techniques, polishing up their current skills, and showing them the awesome rivers and lakes that we have in and near the bay area. Back in December, I made a promise to some customers that I’d show them the ropes on steelhead fishing on the American River and teaching them how to spey cast. I ended up making good on that promise in February. Back in December, even though it was bone dry, I was hoping that the rainfall would get caught up and start pushing some steelhead through the system. January and February are fantastic months to fish the American (normally), but this year’s steelhead run through that river just never really happened. However, with the low flows, it made it easy for them to pick up spey casting and we were able to cover a ton of water so they could see the awesome riffles and pocket water within three adjacent parks: River Bend, William Pond, and La Riviera.

The plan for this trip actually changed from going to the American, to ditching that plan and going to the Yuba (since fishing was doing well there), and then back to the American a couple of days before since a storm had come through and blew-out the Yuba. That storm spiked the flows that would hopefully start getting fish on the move. Unfortunately, this wasn’t the case.

A little sign of life for a flatlined river? Sadly, not really.

With the flows back at 500cfs (we were out on Feb. 11), the guys picked up spey casting very quickly and we were able to cover about 4 miles of river on foot. We focused on swinging flies, dead-drifting, and reading water for steelhead. It was a very fun day of fishing in t-shirts, learning some new techniques, and walking the river. It also gave the guys (myself included) time to cast their new rods: Orvis H2 10-foot 7-wt. outfit with shiny new Mirage reel and Hydros salmon/steelhead floating line; Sage TXC 11-foot 7-wt. switch matched up with new Rio Switch Chucker line; Winston BIIIX 7-wt. spey paired up with Rio Skagit Flight versitip; and Orvis H2 11-ft. 7-wt. switch with Hydros V large arbor reel and Airflo skagit compact line.