It’s been nearly three weeks since the last meaningful rainfall, and most coastal rivers are starting to show it. With the exception of the main stem Eel and the Mad, which are both rounding into excellent shape, flows across the region are dropping and water is turning low and clear. While several systems remain fishable, many rivers — particularly the Smith and Chetco — are in need of a good shot of rain. The good news is that all rivers are currently holding a solid number of winter steelhead, and a few inches of rain would do wonders by boosting flows, pushing fish upriver toward spawning tributaries, and drawing in fresh fish from the ocean.
Weather outlook
According to Eureka’s National Weather Service, “conditions will slightly warm but greatly moisten early next week as a weak warm front alongside a push of southerly winds crosses the area around Tuesday. Increasing midlevel clouds will generally limit the high temperature potential. There is high model agreement that a weak and quick moving trough will cross the area behind the warm front sometime around Wednesday. This trough will bring the first real chances of wetting rain since the first week of January.
Rain will most likely be relatively evenly spread across the area from North to South, with only a slight focus on the North Coast. There remains very high model spread in terms of rain amounts. For low elevations, model means over 48 hours are around.2 to.5 inches, though there is a 10% chance of greater than 1.5 inches or even greater at higher elevations. At the same time, the bottom 30% of models still show no rain at all. In any case, more moist conditions are essentially certain, even should no rain occur, and even the very high end of forecast will pose little to no flood risk given the recent dry period.”
The Rivers:
As of Friday, all rivers subject to low flow fishing closures are open. This includes the main stem Eel, South Fork Eel, Mad, Van Duzen, Redwood Creek, and Smith. The low-flow closure telephone hotline for North Coast rivers is no longer in service. You can now find river openings and closures online at https://wildlife.ca.gov/Fishing/Inland/Low-Flow/North-Coast. Low-flow information for all North Coast rivers is available here.
NOTE: The main stem Eel from the South Fork to Cape Horn Dam, the Mad River from the mouth to 200 yards upstream, and the Mattole River from 200 yards upstream of its mouth to the confluence with Stanberry Creek are now open to fishing. More information can be found here.
Mad
The Mad is in good shape and steelhead are showing up according to Justin Kelly of Eureka’s RMI Outdoors. “There seems to be a fair number of fish around,” said Kelly. “The water is still not perfect, but green enough. Fish seem to be throughout the system.” As of Friday, it was right at 7.15 feet and holding decent color. If you’re looking to catch a steelhead, it’s a good option.
Main stem Eel
The main stem dropped into shape this week and is nice and green, but still big. It was running at 4,400 cubic feet per second as of Friday and should be in great shape through the weekend and likely through the end of the month prior to the next round of storms moving in. There are some steelhead around, but the bite isn’t wide open.
South Fork Eel
The South Fork is running at just above 1,000 cfs at Miranda as of Friday. It’s been in really good shape for over a week and has provided some pretty good fishing at times from the top to the bottom. It should continue to fish through the weekend, but will continue to clear, making fishing a little tougher. It was fairly crowded over the weekend but has since thinned out. The ensemble forecast shows a bump in flows at the end of the month, which could color it up for a few days. It doesn’t look like a full blow out as of today.
Van Duzen
The Van Duzen was down to 190 cfs Friday and is in great shape. Catch reports are hard to come by, but it’s a great option if you’re looking for a spot to bank fish.
Smith River
Flows were under 1,600 cfs (6.6 feet) on the Jed Smith gauge Friday. Despite the low, clear conditions, fishing has been decent for the boats still trying. Fishing pressure has been very light as a lot of anglers have moved to other rivers. The ensemble forecast shows an increase in flows beginning next Friday, which will improve conditions.
Chetco/Rogue/Elk/Sixes
The Chetco is low and clear, but with less pressure, steelhead fishing is decent reports Andy Martin of Wild Rivers Fishing. “Roe and Corkies are working for drift boaters and bank anglers, along with smaller MagLip plugs,” said Martin. “Rain isn’t expected until the end of the month, and it won’t be very much, but should pull in some new fish.
Plunkers are getting steelhead first thing in the morning on the Lower Rogue, but the action has been slow after the sun hits the water. Upstream near Grants Pass, fishing has been good for side-drifters. The Elk and Sixes are low and clear and difficult to drift.”
Brookings ocean update
According to Martin, lingcod fishing has been very good out of Brookings. “Sport crabbing also has improved. Conditions look decent for the weekend, with the area from Bird Island north being the best.
Kenny Priest operates Fishing the North Coast, a fishing guide service out of Humboldt specializing in salmon and steelhead. Find it on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and fishingthenorthcoast.com. For up-to-date fishing reports and North Coast river information, email kenny@fishingthenorthcoast.com
