early Fall salmon season finale!

With a low pressure system moving into the Redding area tomorrow night, today will mark the end of my regular fall salmon season.  I enjoyed another great day on the water with the Bonetto boys who came up on a father/son salmon fishing trip.  We covered lots of water, lost lots of gear, and disposed of a lot of bait trying to fill our limits.  As it turned out, they went home with two fine King salmon, making all the hard work on the water worthwhile.  I'm still looking forward to doing some more salmon fishing for "late fall Kings", but that will certainly depend on what kind of return we see in November.  I would like to extend a huge thanks to all of my clients, new and old, who fished with me this year.  I truly value your support and great fellowship on the water.

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Justin Bonetto with a Sacramento River King salmon he caught in the "Barge Hole".

Whiskeytown Lake Kokanee salmon!

Whiskeytwon Lake fishing remains very good and we are seeing easy daily limits.  There are still Kokanee all over the lake and most of the techniques we deploy are still very effective.  A good place to start the day is in front of the Whiskey Creek Bridge (SR 299) at 45-55'.  Dodgers in front of pink, orange, or blue baits seem to be doing the trick still, but orange is definitely a favorite.  We caught fish at the mentioned depths today pretty much everywhere we fished.  There are still some good numbers of fish at the cold water curtain, but the schools are definitely thinning.  Look for the Kokanee to push up into the creek arms this week with the rains.  The lake temp is down to 66 deg's so I'd look for the Kokanee to be swimming a little higher to the surface by weeks end.  Tight lines!!

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Whiskeytown Lake Kokanee salmon fishing remains strong with easy limits for this father/daughter team today!

Sacramento River salmon fishing was good today!

Today started out like just about every other day on the Sacramento River this salmon season.  We skipped the Barge Hole crowd and ran down river to find some light pressure in some of our favorite holes.  Well, that didn't happen and we ended up sharing a hole with three other boats that were back bouncing plugs making it tough to side drift roe.  Not too long after we started fishing, we hooked and landed a nice 18 pound King salmon.  Not long after that, the Barge Hole boats started coming down to fish in the "Old Mouth" hole.  We left the crowd and ran down into the canyon hoping to run into a pod of salmon.  We found some good trout fishing and hooked into a 6 foot sturgeon that provided an epic battle before we released it beside the boat.  A few more empty holes and a trip down to "Big Rock" remained fruitless so we headed back to the top of where we started the day. We Immediately caught two nice hens to go along with our big buck, and subsequently called it a day.  All in all, it was a great day of salmon fishing and a great day to be an egg fisherman...

Nicholas and Matthew with their Sacramento River King salmon!

Sacramento River steelhead fishing report!

It's fall here in Shasta county and that means it's time to start chasing steelhead trout!  As the king salmon enter the upper reaches of the Sacramento River, the steelhead are never far behind.  We have been catching steelhead on a regular basis already, and catch rates should remain solid through early winter.  Our primary techniques for catching these awesome fish has been to drift natural cured roe, egg imitation beads, or back troll Mag Lip 3.0 plugs.    Keep checking our website for some great steelhead pics in the weeks to come!

Mel Ewing from Auburn, Ca. With a great Sacramento River steelhead.  

Sacramento River salmon trip yields three salmon hooked!

I had a King salmon trip on the Sac River today with three clients.  We started in the Barge Hole at first light and fished until sun up.  The bite was slow so we moved down river so we could side drift some roe.  We didn't get bit until about 11:00, but by 2:00 my clients had hooked three fish.  All three came to the side of the boat, but for one reason or another, we only got one in the net.  Tough day to say the least, but that's what we've been seeing all season long.  Look for a lot more salmon updates the next two weeks!

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9/30/16- Larry Lange of Bayside, Ca. with a 17 lb Sacramento River King salmon!

Whiskeytown Lake Kokanee fishing report

Today I fished Whiskeytown Lake for Kokanee salmon with two clients.  We started out at Whiskey Creek and trolled to the 299 bridge without a bite.  Once we hit the area around the bridge we started catching Kokanee at 45-60'.  Trolling Dick Nite Dodgers and PLine Sunrise Squid in blue, orange, or pink did the trick!  We had 3 easy limits within 2 hrs of fishing.  Some of the Kokanee are taking on their spawning colors, but most are still very bright.  Look for these Kokanee to fish well into October before they start to ready themselves for the spawn in November.