Report by one of our regular guests Dave: "High winds made parts of the day tougher but we had a fairly consistent bite throughout the day. About half way through action on stripped flies slowed but the fish got grabby when we switched to nymphs under indicators. We all caught fish and landed about 25 fish between the 3 of us with a couple in the 28” range. The fish looked at fought well with plenty of LDR's too. This was my third trip this year and was my best in the 2017 season." |
It's getting buggy at Eagle Canyon! I stopped by for an hour this afternoon and the mayflies were really coming off. A lot of fish were rising in both ponds. I saw a few big fish in some very skinny water hunting for hatching mayflies. There were a lot of baetis and callibaetis, plus a few terrestrials. Not sure if they were termites or flying ants, but they were big and I'm sure the fish were eating a few. This is the best time of year to catch a huge Eagle Canyon rainbow on a dry fly. I like to sight-fish in the shallows with a parachute adams and a small nymph dropper just about 10 inches below. Callibaetis | Baetis | Mating flying ants |
|
Had perfect weather yesterday at Eagle Canyon for some fun stillwater action. Morning was a bit slow but things picked up once we got a little chop on the water.
Streamers, nymphs and midges worked best for us both stripping and under an indicator.
Conditions at the lake are great right now with hatches going on throughout the day to keep you busy. Troy with a nice one! | This rainbow towed Ron around for a bit. | |
|
Skip from southern California had this to say about his trip to Eagle Canyon today: "We all caught fish and had an excellent time. Lower lake was hot. Heater got us warm for lunch. Coffee in the morning was a nice touch. We would do it again in a heart beat. Thanks Skip. By the way....The Fish were gigantic and made for big smiles" |
Fishing was good today at Eagle Canyon, but we had to wait for it. The weather was incredible all day with just the slightest breeze and a great view of Mt. Lassen. Fishing was tough all morning with cruising fish refusing our flies time and again. We had a little action on a brown rubberlegs size 8 but mostly refusals. The bite turned on around 2pm and the fly of the day was the "baetis nymph" pattern formerly of Idywilde Flies and now sold by Umpqua, size 16 or 18. It's a drab grey pattern with a bead and no flashy stuff. It worked well fished under an indicator. We fished a lot of 5X tippet today - that was a challenge but it seemed to help get us more grabs. The bite got really good around 4 to 5pm. |
Here are some photos from our guests at Eagle Canyon today. Fishing was pretty tough, but about 8 nice fish were landed. |
Conditions were chilly and breezy for the Cal-Shingle group last Friday. The fish just weren't into it until things started to thaw out a bit. After lunch the grab turned on and several nice fish were brought to the net.
We're starting to see hatches of March Browns (size 14ish). Coaxing a monster rainbow to hit your dry fly is an absolute blast!
|
Beautiful sunny weather at Eagle Canyon this weekend. Fishing was a bit technical at times, but wasn't anything whiskey and some patience couldn't help overcome! Small rubber legs & emergers was the hot ticket this weekend. Armand with a monster! | Father+sons posing w a nice one! | |
|
The water is as dirty as I've ever seen it at Eagle Canyon right now, but somehow the fish can still see the flies! There is about half a foot of visibility right now, but with clear spring water coming in, I think we'll have a couple feet of visibility by tomorrow. Our guests today hooked good numbers of fish on brown rubberlegs size 8, egg-sucking leeches size 4, and flashback PTs and copper johns size 14. Action was slow in the morning but really picked up around 10:30am. The scenery is amazing now that the sun has finally come out for a few days. |
We hosted the Oakland Casting Club today at Eagle Canyon. We had a great group of guys that ran the gamut from total beginners to competition casters. Everyone hooked into fish and had a good time. Glen (see photo) said "Our group had a fantastic time. Thank you for your hospitality." Andy told us "there were lots of hook-ups and huge rainbows to hand through-out the day. A #10 chartreuse bunny leech produced incredibly well in the last hour of the evening." Glad to hear it and we hope to have your group back again soon! Glen caught this one on a size 20 midge! | | |
|
We just had a cancellation at Eagle Canyon for early February. We now have openings on February 6, 7, 8 and 9 for groups of 2 to 8 anglers. These are our last wide-open dates available this season. |
We hosted the Shasta-Trinity chapter of Project Healing Waters today at Eagle Canyon. Here are some photos! |
Fishing report from our guest Dave: Our party of 3, Cicely, Robin and Dave had a fun day with decent conditions, water clarity was OK in spite of recent storms.
There were periods of dead calm where it was super tough to get bit. As usual fish got more active when wind picked up.
We hooked a lot more fish than we landed with some epic fights ending in defeat.
Dave managed to land this chunky monkey 12 pounder. Cicely | Dave again | Dave's big fish of the day |
|
Katie and I just got back from the Sacramento ISE Show. Thanks to all of you who stopped by to say hello! We're down to just a few openings left for the 2017 season. Openings for groups of 2-8 Anglers:
Feb 9 Openings for 1-2 Anglers:
Jan 31
Feb 2, 17
Mar 27
Apr 10-11 Here are a couple of photos from last Wednesday at Eagle Canyon. Marc from Sacramento | Rain or shine! | |
|
Here is a guest report from Will Dea: Although fishing was somewhat challenging due to the recent weather, we
still had a great time. Everyone hooked into fish and a number of nice
sized ones were landed. Flies that seem to work best for our group were
dark small leech/bugger patterns in sizes 8-12 (crawfish orange, black,
dark purple), dark olive damsel nymphs, and flashback PT's. Best times
were in the early morning hours and after 3:00 pm. Ray | Dan | Mason | Jerry | Diana | Will |
|
We have a group of 7 anglers at Eagle Canyon for the next two days. I stopped in for about an hour this morning. The sun was out, the water was clear, and people were hooking up! I saw several fish landed and several more that got away. Fish were eating leech patterns size 8 in black and orange. The water was surprisingly clear so I think smaller flies will be a good bet later in the day. |
Here is a guest report from Dave, one of our regulars at Eagle Canyon: We had very limited visibility in the ponds due to recent rains. It didn't rain a lot during our day but at times the wind gusts were in the 45+MPH range. We managed to land 7 fish between us, some smaller and a few slugs. Big flies earlier in the day with smaller flies getting grabs toward evening. |
We moved Opening Day 2017 up one day to avoid some nasty weather forecast for Saturday. Our opening day crew from the California Walnut Company enjoyed a beautiful day and some great fishing. It definitely felt like the calm before the storm. When we arrived fish were cruising and midging in the surface film. The fishing was red hot in the morning, with fish hooked on every 2nd or 3rd cast for much of the morning. After lunch the fishing slowed down a little, but fishing was still productive. The hot flies today were brown rubberlegs size 8 and olive crystal buggers size 8. Some fish were caught on smaller nymphs, too. The average fish was around 5 pounds. The biggest I saw landed was about 10 pounds. One of our guests reported landing fish up to 28". Greg with a big rainbow | Luke caught a lot of fish today | | | Luke's big fish | Greg with another big one |
|
As we approach our last week of Eagle Canyon, we're getting some good BWO hatches. Bring BWO nymphs and dries! We've had 10-15 lb fish netted this week- the big boys don't get pinned very often! Floating lines continues to be the tool of choice, with 9 foot leaders, sized down to 3-5X. Damsel & mayfly nymphs with a midge trailer will a surefire setup-- if using an indicator, balanced leaches and olive micro mays(size 16-18s) have been working best.
|
We hosted the Diablo Valley Fly Fishers from the Walnut Creek area today at Eagle Canyon. They had excellent weather and the fish were on the grab. I helped out for about an hour and almost everyone had landed a fish by the time I left. There were a couple 10lb+ fish in the mix, too. I saw fish hooked on wiggle nymphs, tailwater tinys, pheasant tails, and various zebra-midge style patterns. | Barry did well with the olive tailwater tiny | |
|