I had a fantastic weekend of guiding and taking in the local flora and fauna at Lake Davis and the Middle Fork Feather River, I kept having to tell myself that it is not the month of June because it sure felt like it! Lake Davis is really starting to happen as water temps continue to climb. Today's reading ranged from 58-62 degrees. The blood midges are still hatching and the rainbows are rising for them when conditions allow (no wind). We had game today but by the time we were ready to present some dry flies to the fish the wind came up big and shut the dry game down. Bummer. Fishing blood midge pupas and Calibaetis nymphs under an indicator is still king in water depths from 8-15 feet. Flies should be presented off the bottom in the morning and 4 feet down in the late morning as the hatch intensifies. Damsels are beginning to show but in very small numbers, we'll have to wait and see what they have in mind as far as a decent hatch in the weeks coming up. The above picture above says it all as this young fly angler caught and released her first Lake Davis rainbow, it was quite the battle on her little 3 wt. rod!
The MFFR is getting very low in the Graeagle area just as I predicted earlier in the month. Most the fish are on the move downstream to higher flows and colder water. There is still some decent fishing to be had and best of all the wild rainbows are taking artificials off the top; dry flies are now producing! On Saturday my guest and I fished many access points from Clio to Sloat. The water below Two Rivers is a tad high but very fishable. We had rising pods of fish in the tail outs of major runs. Water temps ranged from 57-64.4 degrees. Lots of hatches including March Browns, Gray Drakes, BWO's, Little Green Stones, a few Golden Stones, Carpenter Ants, and a smaller black flying ant in a size 14. Effective flies for nymphing were tungsten bead head Hares Ear #12, olive UV2 Mayfly Nymphs #16, and Deep Sparkle Pupa in brown and pale yellow#12. Effective dries; BWO Cripples #16, Parachute UV2 Adams #16, and Emergent Sparkle Pupa in olive #14.
We had some anglers pass by us in Pontoon boats, there is plenty of water to do this as of now but the rowing is a bit technical. I've done this in the past from Clio to Sloat in three separate floats, it can be a blast!
Fingerling wild rainbows from this year's spawn can be found in the idle pools of the side water, It's so good to see that the MFFR has a healthy new trout population for the future.
If you want to fish the MFFR, you better hurry, increasing water temps and lack of snow runoff will shut this fishery down until mid September. Note: Forget the waders, wet wading is just around the corner here!
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