As places to chase steelhead, the shorter coastal streams north of San Francisco have an entrancing quality. The dull roar of breaking surf is juxtaposed with emerald waterways that are surrounded by redwoods and pines. Wild creatures, such as mergansers pursuing smolts as insects bring the young fish to the surface, will ignore the fly fisher as he or she casts and retrieves. And then there is the history and lore of the storied anglers who have preceded you on these same rivers and runs. All of this keeps you enthralled while you wait for the electrifying grab of a chrome-bright steelhead, just in from the sea, as it takes a fly fished on the swing. It is a truly addictive experience.
But on these streams, there are many steelhead anglers and few productive runs. Something has to give. What usually gives is any sense of etiquette. This leads to a particular form of anxiety. Will my favorite run already have anglers? Did I get up early enough to beat the crowding? Are other anglers going to crowd in on me? You don’t need lots of coffee to get jumpy and on edge when fishing these waters. Paranoia comes with the terrain: winter steelhead madness.
My experience is that the more anglers there are on the river, the more likely we are to crowd in on each other. This tendency appears to be part of human nature, relating somehow to the scarcity mentality. I have seen cliques of up to six anglers moving in unison on the Garcia and Gualala Rivers. If word reaches them that a fish was caught or even just spotted, they will move into that run, even if other anglers are already there. And rotating through a run just does not happen. The person with the weakest bladder is at a distinct disadvantage. You are also at a disadvantage if you are not part of the A-Team clique.
Another aspect of winter steelhead madness is the mind games that can be played as anglers compete for water. One is the “Awe Shucks-Nothing’s Happening” game, in which an angler sees others coming and reels up to suggest the fish aren’t biting. I have learned not to walk away too quickly when someone does this, but to look for rolling fish. I have even been told by one steelheader (who appeared in the film Anglers of a Lost Coast) that rolling steelhead were diving ducks.
Another game I call the “Leap Frog.” It can occur when someone wants to fish where you are. This person starts to fish a ways from you and begins to move upstream toward you, hoping you will do a countermove downstream. Then you get passed by.
This potential for crowding and gamesmanship creates a level of anxiety throughout the fishing day. Apprehensiveness is the rule. If I find fish rolling, I am looking over my shoulder to see who might be on their way. I have objected to anglers moving in to cast right next to me and have gotten some relief. However, one guy told me, “This isn’t Scotland. There are no beats here.”
I am sure that some of you are just like me. I know that I am more comfortable on a mountain stream where I can fish for hours without seeing another angler. But I am transfixed by steelhead fishing. The power, beauty, and life cycle of these anadromous fish own my soul. Imagine the journey they have undertaken — from eating small insects in their natal stream to a predatory ocean environment, only to return to their stream to spawn. And on some rivers, such as the Russian, they have to run a gauntlet of marauding sea lions at the river’s mouth. I have even seen sea lions upriver when steelhead are in. Many fish survive this spawning run to make the loop from ocean to river and back more than once.
My belief is that we tend to fish our personalities, and I do not feel comfortable moving into a run when several others are already there. Somewhere along the line, the Golden Rule has been cemented into my psyche: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” Maybe I saw too many TV Westerns in the 1950s in which the good guys truly were of generous character and considerate of others.
It may sound corny, but that’s a cure for winter steelhead madness. With my “Golden Rule” approach, I have met several other anglers who have become good friends. I met Tom from Sebastopol on the Russian River when I saw his pickup truck parked in a spot that looked fishy — one that I didn’t know about. So I worked my way down to the river and found him playing a steelhead. Afterward, I asked him if he minded if I joined him on the run. I am sure that if I had just started fishing without giving him the courtesy of asking first or at least asking in what part of the run he would like me to start, we probably never would have become friends, especially so quickly. Now we fish together and share information on river and fishing conditions.
With all this in mind, I drove north from San Francisco along Highway 1 during the first week of March several years ago. The California Data Exchange Center website indicated that the river levels had dropped to a marginally fishable level after some significant rain the week before. I usually make several trips to this area from January through March. But the North Coast rivers, except for the Russian, had been closed in January that year due to low flows. And then it had rained much of February, blowing them all out. The smaller coastal streams usually clear in about a week after a winter storm, while the Russian can take three weeks. Maybe conditions now were optimal for the smaller rivers and streams.
As I drove , I tried to talk my way into limited acceptance of the no-etiquette approach. “You know this is the norm, Phil. You’re not in Scotland. Don’t let this keep you from enjoying yourself.”
The river conditions on the Garcia River seemed perfect. The water in the estuary below Highway 1 at the end of Minor Hole Road was off-color, but waist deep. I could still see my boots. The water temperature was 51, warm enough for a steelhead to move to my fly. Normally, the best tides to fish are the last part of incoming and the entire outgoing. According to one theory, the fish move at night or low light. They are supposedly less likely to take your fly when on the move. During an outgoing tide, there is less water in which the fish can hide. High tide was about noon, and I started fishing around ten in the morning. Now all I needed were some fish.
I didn’t see any of the usual Garcia cliques that move in unison. In fact, there were only four vehicles in the parking lot when I arrived. I eventually spotted fish rolling below the Bend Hole, and no other anglers were there. These were my fish, I told myself. No one was going to move in on me.I finally got one to take my fly after several hours of casting. It was on all of five seconds before it ran right at me and earned its freedom. I count this as a success. You can cast all day to rolling fish and not get a take.
The next morning, I got to the parking area by 6:30. Not early enough. Two other cars were already there. And another angler had been hot on my heels driving in on Minor Hole Road. This guy behind me already had his waders on. With a quick “Good morning,” he was past me like a shot. With steelhead fishing, it’s often the early bird that gets the steelhead. So if you are in the parking lot first thing in the morning putting on your waders and stringing up your rod and someone else is doing the same, you might be in a rush. Will you forget your sunscreen, lunch, or worse, your water? I have done all three at one time or another.
One of the anglers had spotted my rolling fish below the Bend Hole — which were still there. My fish! But the Golden Rule is a hard rule to break, once you start trying to live by it. And there are compensations — sometimes immediate ones.
True to my style, I didn’t move in on the guy. Instead, I fished the Willow Run and promptly sacrificed two flies to the willow gods. (Note to myself: Come back during low flows and collect what must be hundreds of flies decorating the branches.) The guy with my rolling fish eventually hooked one.
But again, rather than move in on him and try to shoulder him out, I headed downstream. Had I seen a rolling fish in the distance in an unlikely location? Maybe it was a fish moving upstream and not likely to be caught. Maybe it was a diving duck. It was so far away, I couldn’t tell. As I walked to the spot and then changed to an intermediate-density shooting head, I hadn’t seen any other surface activity. But on my first cast with a size 6 Comet, I connected with a fresh, eight-pound fish. It jumped several times and provided a magnificent fight. This is why you spend all those hours and sometimes days standing in 40-to-50-degree water, repeatedly casting shooting heads. I had found a pod of steelhead. I landed four fish from this group over a six-hour period. All but one was fresh.
The next day, before the noon rains and wind drove me off, I caught another on the second pass through the same run with a different fly. It is interesting that sometimes a fly or size change can bring a fish that apparently had ignored your first offering. I never would have found these fish if I hadn’t moved on. If you go to these North Coast rivers in winter, remember the Golden Rule and try a little etiquette. This may not be Scotland, but that’s no excuse for descending into winter steelhead madness.
