This year has been one of my busiest summers I’ve had in a long time. There hasn’t been a whole lot of fishing happening as other summer activities have taken over the spotlight however I did manage a visit to the North Fork of the Feather River, Middle Fork of the Feather River, and did some camping at Grizzly Forebay.
I haven’t been a fan of the new regulations on the North Fork of the Feather River since they changed it a few years ago. Instead of opening the stretch from Belden to Cresta Dam during the normal trout season on the last Saturday of April the regulations were pushed an entire month forward to the Saturday preceding Memorial Day. We are essentially missing out on many of the hatches in the canyon especially the Mother’s day caddis and golden stoneflies. By the time you’re legally allowed to fish this section the river is transitioning from spring to summer. There is about a two-week opening where the fishing can be decent but never great. It’s all downhill from there as temperatures soar into the upper 90s – 100s.
I fished the North Fork the week after it opened and did pretty good. The flow chart was showing 550 CFS but the river felt and appeared higher. I wasn’t able to get around as well as I was hoping so I spent the majority of the day fishing my favorite sections. I caught over a dozen fish and switched between nymphing and dry fly fishing to keep things fresh. It’s always a great time out on the North Fork.
The Middle Fork of the Feather River fished okay this year. There didn’t seem to be as many fish around as the previous years but overall it was a decent visit.
The big fishing trip this summer was my first father-son camping trip. We planned an overnight at Grizzly Forebay with the boat hoping that we’d catch a bunch of fish. I felt like a lot of things didn’t pan out the way I wanted it to and this trip was more of a learning experience than a solid trip.
The campground at Grizzly Forebay is free which is awesome but I did not know you had to hike in 3/4 of a mile from the parking lot to get to the campground. There was no way my five year old and I were going be able to get all our gear that far without taking several trips. Instead, we took a gamble; I set up the boat, packed it with our gear, and set out hoping that the campground would be near the shoreline. We lucked out and found the campsites about halfway down the lake about thirty feet away the water.
The last time I fished Grizzly Forebay I did pretty good. The lake has an inlet at Grizzly Creek where the trout can spawn naturally which leaves me to believe that all the fish in the lake are wild. It’s also about a 30-45 minute drive up the turnoff to get to the lake so all-in-all I don’t think the lake gets very much pressure all year. In theory the fishing should be good. Well it kind of sucked this trip. I had one gear rod fishing with bait and the other, a fly rod for nymphing. Nothing was touching the bait so I took it out and went full in on fly fishing. We had a few takes but nothing would stick. Fish were jumping all around so there were plenty around. After about an hour and a half we finally hook our first fish and it was a nice brown about 16″. My son helped me net it in and we took a few pictures with it before tossing it back. We continued fishing for about an hour afterwards with no grabs. My son got started getting bored and wanted to head back to the campsite. I agreed this was boring.
After an evening of Mountain House meals and beating Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredders Revenge on the Nintendo Switch we called it a night. The following morning we ate a bit of breakfast and tried fishing again. No luck. Let’s get out of here.
