Report date: 10/30/12

Fishing over the past week has remained decent with last Friday being one of the best days of catching that the river has experienced since the opening of the steelhead retention season. All of our guides had multiple fish in the box at the end of the day along with plenty stories about the ones that didn't make it to the net. Gear anglers had the most consistent success side drifting eggs and back trolling plugs. Fly anglers also saw some success with most fish coming to wet flies near the surface.

The big news for this week is that just as the fishing was getting good Mother Nature decided to throw us a curve ball. Due to a very wet few days the river has become unfishable for a few days. The good news is that as I write this report the tribs seem to have peaked and flows are receding. We feel the river will be fishing well by Friday as long as flows continue dropping.

Report Date: 10/16/12

Fishing over the past week continued to be decent with gear anglers back trolling plugs having the highest rate of success.  On the water success for fly anglers seems to be as diverse as the anglers themselves.  Some guys are struggling to hook fish while others are consistently hooking up daily.  The biggest key to consistent success with the fly seems to be finding fish that want to move to the fly.  The guys out there covering the most water and fishing hard are the ones finding success.  It also seems that people willing to fish with a light sink tip are out fishing the floating line guys by a large margin. 

As most people know yesterday was the opening day of Steelhead Harvest season on most of the Clearwater River.  Some of our guides did very well getting their clients into a bunch of big B-Run steelhead.  If you are looking at getting into a few fish to keep now is the time to hit the Clearwater.  Our boats caught fish back trolling plugs and side drifting eggs.  Both of these methods can be extremely effective this time of year, and it seems that a combination of the two methods used throughout the day seems to give guys the best chance at success. 

Report Date 10/9/12

Fishing continued to be decent over the past week but the prolonged dry spell that we are in has the Clearwater running very, very, low and clear.  This has made things a little bit more difficult than normal for this time of year.  Even with the slightly more difficult conditions fly anglers continued to have a decent opportunity at hooking a few fish.  Most success has come to anglers that know the river well and are fishing hard.  Steelhead fly fishing is not easy and guys fishing lots fishy water are getting hookups.  Most of the normal dry line stuff has been producing, but the most success seems to be coming from guys willing to throw tips and larger flies.  For some reason the larger presentation is getting fish to move a little better. 

Gear anglers continue to have good success pulling plugs through productive steelhead water.  The biggest issue for gear anglers is the large numbers of fall Chinook in the system.  If you are able to get your gear into fishy water without a big nook grabbing it then we seem to end up hooking a steelhead. 

I feel overall that fishing has been fairly decent and if we can get some good rain we will see some fantastic steelhead fishing.  Pray for rain and keep fishing hard and the fish will come!

Report Date:  10/1/12

Fishing continued to be decent over the past week and we have started to see some very large B Run Steelhead enter the system.  Fly anglers continued to have moderate success as the river was fairly busy during the latter part of the week and into the weekend.  Anglers that seemed to find some untouched water and fish seemed to have decent success.  Most of our fish were caught fishing small hair wing type patterns near the surface while the sun was off the water, and on small leach type stuff in black or purple on a light sink tip during the mid-day period.  Once again it seems that the anglers covering the most water tend to be the ones rewarded with a fish or two also don’t forget to switch thing up a little when there are lots of other guys stepping through runs.  The crowds should calm down a little over last week as Poppy, from The Red Shed in Peck, Idaho was having his yearly spey gathering on the Clearwater.  After the clave things seem to calm down quite a bit. 

Gear anglers continued to have good success back trolling metallic finished plugs.  Guys who fish gear this time of year often have really good success catching big B Run Steelhead.  Other methods that consistently produce fish this time of year are spoons and float and jig presentations. 

All anglers need to remember that above Memorial Bridge in Lewiston the Clearwater River is Catch and Release for all steelhead fishing, and these fish need to be treated with the upmost respect.

On another note guys need to realize that the water is very low at this point in time and if you are running a power boat you need to be especially careful!  One of our guides actually got a drift boat stuck the other day!  Just be cautious and watch out for each other and things will be groovy.