Posts tagged: mccloud river

The Video That Makes You Wonder Why They Close The McCloud Every Winter

January 24, 2013, by Tom Chandler 11 comments

Anyone who’s ever fished the McCloud likely became a lifelong fan of the river the minute they saw it.

Don’t fall in love. We dare you. (Image Keith Brauneis)

It does everything an iconic, blue-ribbon trout river should do. It’s impossibly beautiful, challenging to fish, holds plenty of good-sized trout (which are also beautiful), and each trip there simply lingers in the memory.

It also faces a lot of threats (flooding due to dam raising, a FERC relicensing of flows and the threat of upstream water diversions).

CalTrout takes those threats very seriously, which is why they helped create Enough is Enough — a short documentary video by Keith Brauneis.

This isn’t pointless fish porn, but a gorgeous documentary about a river that shouldn’t be facing threats, but is. Unfortunately, you can’t watch the whole video unless you find yourself at one of the Fly Fishing Film Tour’s California showings.

The good news? You can watch the trailer right here:

Enough Is Enough Trailer from Keith Brauneis on Vimeo.

If you’re intrigued, you can read a pretty good interview with the filmmaker here. (How do I know it’s good? I did the interview…)

Here’s an excerpt:

So you’ve been a fly fisherman a long time; what’s your relationship with the McCloud?

I’ve been there a handful of times; like anybody, the first time I saw the McCloud it was more a feeling than a sight. There’s so much history — it’s hard not to feel the spirit of the place.

People’s reactions to the McCloud are often more visceral than verbal.

Yeah. You feel that river. You just feel it. There’s something going on there.

Watch the video. Read the interview. Then sink into a world-class depression because you can’t fish the McCloud until the end of April.

(At the Underground, the helping never stops…)

See you watching video, Tom Chandler.

McCloud River Reopening; October Caddis Hatching On Upper Sacramento

October 5, 2012, by Tom Chandler 6 comments

It’s been crazy. Everybody’s been sick. Everybody needs something. A meeting was called.

All the usual stuff.

Here’s the short course.

The McCloud River should reopen this weekend.

The October Caddis are coming off on the Upper Sacramento (as is a midday BWO hatch).

Sage has sent me a 3wt, 8’9″ Circa to test.

I am too sleepy to say more.

See you with my eyes closed, Tom Chandler.

Wildfire Fire Burning Towards McCloud River

August 29, 2012, by Tom Chandler 2 comments

If the wind’s right, the smoke from the Bagley fire — a 30,000+ acre wildfire burning right towards the McCloud River — makes it smell like the neighbors just torched off a big pile of leaves under the window.

CalTrout’s taken notice of the fire (they’re concerned about the loss of vegetation and the potential for sedimentation), and they’re probably right about the need to perhaps look elsewhere if you were thinking of fishing the McCloud this weekend.

(There is no truth to the rumors I’m just saying all this to drive away the flatlanders and get the whole river to myself, though it’s not a half-bad idea.)

Here’s the Incident web page.

Here are the current forest road closures

You can see an updated version of my screengrab firemap here

The McCloud/Bagley Firemap (click image for bigger, readable, up-to-date version)

See you through the smoke, Tom Chandler.

Local Photographer, Fly Fishing Guide Kickstarts McCloud River Photo Book

May 22, 2012, by Tom Chandler 3 comments

Local photographer and guide John Rickard just launched a Kickstarter project in an attempt to fund his fine art photo book on the McCloud River, and because we’re a sucker for a nice old-school B&W print, I thought I’d pass it along to the Undergrounders.

If you’re not familiar with Kickstarter, it’s a crowdfunding site, and in this case, Rickard’s essentially pre-selling copies of book to support the production of the book.

Rickards' Kickstarter page

If his project is not fully funded (he’s set a goal of raising $25,000 in 60 days), then the whole deal is called off, and those who pledged money aren’t charged.

If he does reach his funding goal, then his benefactors pay up, then receive the premium they paid for (book, prints, etc).

It’s a fast-growing service that takes an innovative “funding first” approach to projects, one of which included funding for an Olive The Wooly Bugger App by fly fishing blogger and children’s book author Kirk Werner (now closed).

Below is the project video created by Rickard.

See you on the McCloud, Tom Chandler.

Image from Rickard Book

It's not all river porn...

Countdown To The Opener: The Upper Sacramento & McCloud Rivers

April 23, 2012, by Tom Chandler 4 comments

The countdown to California’s General Trout Season Opener is underway (it’s this Saturday, 4/28 for those of you who lack a sense of drama), and unlike some people I’m not about to go all postal on my co-workers. But I am willing to say I’m planning to bypass the places where the popular kids hang out in favor of something more remote.

In fact, I’m cooking up an improbable plan to access one stream (with a fallback stream in mind if I can’t) which one friend described as “hair brained.”

I’m tempted to agree with him, but fly fishing’s history is riddled with hair-brained ideas (Fly a light plane to fish undiscovered waters? Fish fulltime and write about it for a living??).

One more can’t hurt.

For those of you looking for bigger waters, here’s the wholly unguaranteed skinny on the local flows:

A couple of 80-degree days means the runoff has started, though cooler temps for this week (50s and 60s) might knock the flows back just a little bit.

The Upper Sacramento is running around 4,000cfs, but with temperatures in the 50s and 60s forecast for the week (a lot cooler than the 80 degree temps of the last couple days), it will likely fall some, though I doubt it’s what an effete dry fly snob would consider prime.

The Lower McCloud River is more regulated, and at this moment, the flows at Ah-Di-Nah are below 420 cfs. Not great, but not bad. The dam is releasing 165 cfs, so Hawkins Creek is pushing out a couple hundred CFS.

Steve Bertrand fishes the Upper McCloud, which I'd guess is running kinda high for the opener

Interestingly, we now see a flow gage for the McCloud “near the town of McCloud” — which is interesting given the river never really gets that close to the town.

As near as I can tell, this is a flow gage for the Upper McCloud below Big Springs but above the lake, and I haven’t experienced it enough to know how to translate it back to the Upper McCloud, though a simple extrapolation (subtract 800 cfs for Big Springs) suggests the Upper McCloud is rolling awfully high.

Hey, I’m not Carnac or anything.

More as it happens from your Leading Opening Day News Source (“We Report, You Go Somewhere Else.”), Tom Chandler

Now It’s The McCloud’s Turn (Spill Notice from PG&E)

June 10, 2011, by Tom Chandler No comments yet

The McCloud River’s ramping up as we speak. From PG&E:

Lower McCloud River Interested Parties,

As you may be aware, McCloud Dam has been spilling approximately 150 to 300 cubic feet per second (cfs) for past several weeks. PG&E has been taking careful steps to manage the spill flow and increasing inflow into McCloud Reservoir by monitoring the reservoir level, maintaining the water surface elevation in Iron Canyon and McCloud Reservoirs, and diverting water through James B. Black Powerhouse to maintain the maximum amount of storage capacity.

Based on the current snowpack condition, increasing air temperature, and increasing inflow conditions into McCloud Reservoir, PG&E anticipates that the spill magnitude at McCloud Dam will continue to increase steadily over the next several days, and possibly weeks depending on the long term weather trend.

Click here for the most current flow conditions in the Lower McCloud River below the dam.

Click here or the most current flow conditions in the Lower McCloud River at Ah-Di-Na.

Suggested Headline Of The Day: “Asshole Blogger Starts Stampede to McCloud River”

June 6, 2011, by Tom Chandler 3 comments

Wayne Eng called this morning to say the McCloud River was entirely fishable last weekend, yet crowded to within an inch of its life.

He even jokingly laid the crowding at the feet of last Friday’s Underground post, and while I’m always happy to see the instantaneous worldwide reach of the Underground confirmed, the sad reality is that the McCloud is one of the only truly fishable rivers in the area, and will remain so until temperatures warm, and it blows out.

We don’t call it the “McCrowd” for nothing.

Still — and purely in the interest of a science experiment — I’m tempted to fish the McCloud next weekend, but only after posting an article suggesting Lake Siskiyou is kicking out 20″ Rainbows and Brook trout to anyone who can fog a mirror*.

If the McCloud was empty, I’d not only have the place to myself, I’d also feed the megalomania that is slowly but surely building here at TU/Man Cave World Headquarters (in between bouts of kid-induced psychosis).

In what amounts to instant karmic recycling, Wayne and near-local Mark Motashem caught some nice trout in an interesting tributary on the Pit River, and I’d like to take the rest of this sentence to tell people not to bother asking where in an email (like a few did after my last small stream trip).

This part of the world isn’t exactly lousy with good small streams, and uncovering one is usually an act of enterprise that requires sharing with only your close fishing buddies. Sorry.

Egged Out By The Cold

Frankly, I think the sustained, unnaturally cold spring weather is taking its toll on everybody’s nerves, though perhaps none of us has suffered as much as the Steller’s Jays that built a nest on top of a ladder leaned up beneath our back porch. Some time ago I peeked around the corner to find the mommie obviously incubating an egg, but a long string of sub-freezing nights and mornings may have doomed that enterprise.

A quick Internet search suggests the egg incubation period is typically 16-18 days, and we’re well beyond that. Realizing I hadn’t seen the female for several days, I climbed the ladder and found an mommie-less nest containing a solitary egg.

My guess? The sustained 10-to-15-degrees below normal weather made it impossible to keep the egg warm, and it was abandoned when it didn’t hatch on schedule.

Of course, real bird experts are welcome to chime in, and maybe we can solve the Mystery of the Abandoned Egg. I’m kinda happy I didn’t make a big deal about the whole thing with Little M, who by now would be looking up at me with her big, innocent, trusting eyes, asking “where babies?”

See you where I’m not, Tom Chandler.

(*An abject lie, but not a bad one)

Run (Don’t Walk) To The McCloud River

June 3, 2011, by Tom Chandler 6 comments

The weather hasn’t cooperated with California’s fly fishermen, but that doesn’t mean the rivers haven’t been fishing well.

In fact, fans of the McCloud River should have noticed the flows are a basically fishable 370 cfs at Ah-Di-Nah, and the Upper Sacramento River is hanging in there around the 2000 cfs mark (high, but not impossible).

Once the weather warms (hint: that’s not happening this weekend), those numbers will become a distant memory.

If you decide to ditch the responsible adult portion of your life and fish the McCloud this weekend, keep two things in mind:

Flows could change at any minute
A cold, wet storm is coming, so better bring the warm clothing

Special Bonus Rumor

It’s possible someone — perhaps even an eyewitness — told me multiple mayflies were hatching on the McCloud, and that the fish were on them.

Then again, he also told me it was happening in a specific section, which suggests hiring a guide if you want the real skinny.

Go fish, Tom Chandler.

More On The McCloud Dam Relicensing: Five Minutes of Data (and Peace of Mind)

May 25, 2011, by Tom Chandler No comments yet

Because the Underground believes in whipping dead horses, burying them, then unburying them again so they can be whipped some more, I’m posting an informative five-minute screencast by CalTrout’s ~~often tongue-tied~~ Conservation Director Curtis Knight, who explains the nuances of the proposed McCloud flow regime using actual data in the form of hydrographs.

CalTrout already posted an article about the McCloud’s proposed flows — and this is clearly biology tech of the pocket protector, taped glasses type — but it’s also fairly clear and succinct, and when it’s over, you’ll realize the McCloud’s future is looking pretty good.

There are still emails flying out there predicting as much as 4x increases in spring flows and a river that’s wholly unfishable well into July, and it’s rubbish.

See for yourself.

Want to Fly Fish the Upper Sacramento and McCloud Rivers? It’s Better Now Than It Will Be Later…

May 18, 2011, by Tom Chandler No comments yet

The Upper Sacramento — which should be damned well unfishable right now — has fallen below 1800 cfs, and the McCloud at Ah-Di-Nah is below 500 cfs.

Neither is exactly ideal for wading, but both are wholly fishable flows (if you don’t mind walking a bit).

They’ll probably remain that way through the weekend, and if you’re thinking of heading north for a little cannonball-split-shot combat fly fishing, that’s the good news — especially if you stumble onto one of the few spots with trout rising to March Browns.

The bad news?

With our springtime weather apparently still on a train north from Cancun (the weather forecast suggests a 70+ degree day isn’t even on the horizon), you may not see those Ideal-For-Fly-Fishing-Normally-Late-Spring Flows until the middle of July (if then).

See, the real runoff event hasn’t yet begun, and in fact, we’ve added to the snowpack the last couple days.

I could write about the horrific effects that three days of mid-May snow have on a writer’s delicate psyche (and advocate heavily for some kind of federal creative disaster relief), but in a rare display of courage, I’m going to stop sniffling and hope the Underground’s California readers are taking advantage of this rare pre-runoff bonanza.

We’ll pay for it later in the form of some serious runoff, and when it happens, I sincerely doubt that the word “courageous” will be used to describe those posts.

See you hiding the tears on the river, Tom Chandler.

UPDATE: You can find the snowpack/waterpack figures here, which will tell you the high snowpack and cold spring mean the Northern Sierras are at… 253% of normal for this time of the year.