Grizzly Forebay, Middle Fork Feather River, North Fork Feather River

The Summer Of ’25

by Matt

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.

Bucks Creek, Bucks Lake, Grizzly Forebay

Exploring Bucks Creek and Grizzly Forebay

by Matt

Bucks Lake is one of the major lakes in the Quincy area that is fed by two main inlets; Mill Creek and Bucks Creek. The area around Bucks Lake is well-known for its vast outdoor recreation use and the fishing opportunities are plentiful. I’ve been to Bucks Lake a few times before however these visits were during the mid-summer when the water temperature was at its warmest. I’ve always had eyes for the Bucks Lake’s tributaries and thought they were probably be the best places to check out once they were opened the Saturday preceding Memorial Day. My hope was to be able to fish both Bucks Creek and Mill Creek to find myself some brook trout as I haven’t caught one in a few years. My findings were unexpected but in the end some good fishing came out of it.

Bucks Creek was the first stream that I wanted to check out. I arrived at the creek at around 11am and was a bit disappointed to find that it was running very low. I didn’t know what I was expecting since this was a drought year. I waded upstream a few yards and didn’t find anything so I backtracked down to the lake. The water level at Bucks Lake didn’t look too bad whereas there was still plenty of water near the outlet of Bucks Creek. There were several families out fishing closer to the bank that had caught a few small rainbows earlier in the morning. I observed a ton of splashy rising and was hoping I could get in on the action. I waded across the creek and took some time to try and figure out what the fish were rising for. It was of course an insect that I did not have in my river/stream fly box, the flying ant. I did my best with what I had, I took out a royal wulff, pinched off a bit of the white wing hair, and clipped off the tail. I did manage to get a few rises with my modified pattern but ultimately failed to hook any fish. I switched to an indicator setup with midges and had a few takes however still no hook ups. I checked my watch and noticed that I had spent way too much time trying to convince these fish to eat. I left fishless and off to check out Mill Creek.

Mill Creek is perhaps the inlet that feeds the most water to Bucks Creek. Although I’ve only seen it from a map view I believe that the flows are always decent no matter the conditions. I drove all the way around the lake to find no parking at the day use area. The only parking was way up before the campground area and I was not feeling up to walking all that way to get to the Mill Creek. During my drive to get to Mill Creek I noticed a sign for Grizzly Forebay that peaked my interested. Instead of calling it quits I decided make a change of plans and check out Grizzly Forebay.

I did quite a bit of researched for this trip and could not pull anything significant up about Grizzly Forebay. There was one fishing report of trout being caught there on dry flies several years ago and information about the trout being wild rainbows and browns but that was about all I could find. From Lower Bucks it took me about 30-40 minutes to get the parking of Grizzly Forebay powerhouse. Unfortunately the gate to get to the powerhouse itself was closed which meant that I had to hike up the hill about half a mile to get to the water.

My first sight of Grizzly Forebay was a good one as the water level was not as low as I was imagining. I grew a bit anxious as I neared closer and noticed that the powerhouse wasn’t running. My plan was to fish below it whereas fish are typically stacked in the current picking off whatever floats by them. The access to the water was a bit difficult seeing as there were a ton of willows throughout the steep banks. I made way up the powerhouse and spotted a few trout tailing the bottom. I put on a pheasant tail nymph with a zebra midge, classic stillwater patterns to imitate a callibaetis and midge larva, and made a few casts. After several casts I watched as a fish came out of nowhere and swiped my flies. I managed to land it and caught my first Grizzly Forebay brown trout.

I hoofed it around the powerhouse towards the inlet at Grizzly Creek and spotted a few fish rising in the shallows. I could see several rises throughout the channel so I switched to a callibaetis emerger. I caught a few on a dry and eventually switched to naked nymphing a pheasant tail. I had a field day catching rainbows with a brown or two mixed in for every couple of bows.

Although Bucks Creek and Mill Creek were a bust, Grizzly Forebay was pretty fun and I look forward to getting out there again next time with a float tube. I didn’t catch anything huge but I have a feeling that there are some lunkers out there just waiting to be caught.

Keep Calm and Fly Fish™