Spey Fly History In his first book, The Art of Angling (1836) Scottish angler and poet, Thomas Tod Stoddart, described several flies used for Atlantic salmon – “While on salmon flies, we…

Bees and Wasps for Steelhead 2 Bees and Wasps fly patterns that will make most steelhead take notice are: Bees, and Wasps. My July 8th, 2020 blog mentioned two fly…

Pet hair dubbing explained… For many years, fly tyers have used a variety of animal furs for dubbing. Small patches of various furs can be purchased in fly shops. Rabbit…

Steelhead Fly Lines At a certain time of the year a river is reported to “go over” to the floating line. British Columbia writer and fly angler Roderick Haig-Brown said…

American Shad Flies Introduction of Shad American shad were first introduced to California by Seth Green, an early fish culturist. Green established the first fish hatchery in the United States…

Steelhead bites a fly – Why? When selecting an artificial fly for trout fishing, anglers often attempt to “match the hatch”. Many at least offer some trout food representative in…

fly fishing tips In this blog I provide fly fishing tips for catching spring steelhead. In a previous blog, I described the spring steelhead that often show up in Central…

Fish counts Estimates of the historical American River spring steelhead run are available. Prior to construction of Folsom and Nimbus dams, counts of adult steelhead were made at the Old…

American River winter steelhead American River winter steelhead are an important recreational resource. Construction of Folsom and Nimbus dams on the American River blocked historic runs of Chinook salmon and…