Tonight’s Klamath River flows are at 3400cfs in Orleans and the river is scoured clean from the 30,000cfs (at Orleans) pulse of water the last storm put through the canyon. The Algae seems all but gone, the leaf liter is absent, the moss is scrubbed off…and the weather, water temperature, water clarity and the the fly fishing is ideal. This is exactly the circumstance I was hoping to see after the storm. Today’s trip brought us 4 adult fish to the fly, but we were only able to net this 10 pound buck:
If you look past Steve’s fish, and up to his hat you might recognize the remnants of a road kill yellow bellied marmot. Why is it there? I have no idea! The rest of his hat is equally ugly, and contains the tail hanging off of the back. So! Steve wanted me to tell the world that he thanks his Mother, Father, his producer, and all the little people that helped him on the way to this great steelhead. Especially, Daniella, his personal trainer, for the attentive work on his lats and triceps in preparation for the 30 minute fight this fish put up. Thank you Steve.
Even more bizarre than Steve’s hat were the numerous gas cans, life jackets and oil containers that were caught up in the eddies. I presume this is litter from miner’s dredges left too close to the water line and carried down-stream by the storm. We tried to do some clean-up, but our boat could only carry a small fraction of the debris. We did, however, build a nice gas fire to incinerate some of the fuel we found in a punctured can. Check out the smudge fire from our river clean-up.
Yes, there is NEVER a dull moment on the Klamath or at Marble Mountain Ranch. In summary, these are some of the BEST fly fishing conditions you could expect, right now, right here, on the mid-Klamath…complete with river-side bon-fires and marmot hats….just another normal day. !!
Till later, Doug