The high summer sun, which burned with such intensity for months, is now lower in the sky, and days are growing shorter. The question lingers in the earlier sunsets: “Did I make the most of the long days?” I set a new personal record if success is defined by time on the water. Beyond the number of times I got on the water, I am always blown away that I can find new fishing experiences in my own backyard. One week in the usually dull August (in the striper world, Hawgust) stands out when I caught striper in the surf, bay, on the Delta, and the Lower Sacramento with Capt. Ben Thompson. This sea-to-summit journey ended with Tom Mahan floating the Trinity River and watching the steelhead dart into the tailouts. Their presence is the early indicator of the changes to come.

As the leaves change color and the sound of geese fills the sky, the seasons silently slip into the next. I can’t help but feel drawn to the rivers that swell with winter rains in the same way fish are called back every year. Trading in the trout and striper tools of summer/fall for winter tools. Most notably, my spey rod, my winter waders (the pair reserved for cold weather fishing never to be used in bushwhack of summer), Grandpa’s humpback A5, and my perch set up and crab pots. The summer garden gets ripped out and planted with cover crops for the coming year’s harvest. These rituals come with a natural rhythm in my 36th year as a Californian.
The more deft or transplants often scoff that California lacks seasons, and while they don’t punch you in the face like the blizzards of Montana, they exist subtly, like a sly glance from the end of the bar. This makes me appreciate them all the more. I write this at sea level, and if reading this from any elevation, you have your own unique seasonal change.
October is one of the months (the other is May) you can’t miss out on as an angler. So many phenomena: October caddis calling trout to the surface one last time before winter sets in, salmon flooding into the rivers to spawn, the World Series striper bite in the bay, brown trout moving into their angry pre-spawn selves, steelhead hanging way back in the tailout ready to crush a muddler. The eastern Sierra will change a color of orange that you have to see to believe, but the story I am most looking forward to watching unfold this fall is the reunion of the Klamath River. Someone told me they were sick of hearing about the Klamath dam removal project. I was dumbfounded; as an angler, this is the most significant restoration project in our lifetime. I am glued to its results and can’t wait to wade its banks soon to see the changes. I hope you experience California’s fall from the water’s edge.
Stay Fishy, California.