Come hell or LOW water

Make it Rain

This is no joke. I am going crazy.  It should be the heart of the winter steelhead season in Northern California, and I should be making all kinds of excuses to be on the coast, chasing big dime bright steelhead just coming in from the Pacific.

But it won’t rain…

This time of year I am usually looking at the flows of dozens of different rivers within 300 miles, trying to figure out which one will have the magic combo, for the perfect conditions, to intercept just one fish. Judging if the last storm brought the rivers up enough to bring in fish, or if they dropped enough to clear and swing right.

But no storms have come…not even one.

I have never in my life as a steelheader seen the rivers closed due to low water the entire month of January. I have worried about rivers being too low, but never that they might dry up completely, and not let the fish in at all.

California announced a week or so ago we are officially in a drought, but steelheaders around here have known for a while. Every day I spend raking my yard, or doing some other project I never had time to finish, reminds me that I am missing something important.

My fly boxes are getting too full…

I have never wanted it to rain so bad in my entire life, and I want it to rain a lot. Something has got to give soon, or I am going to lose it.

Pray for rain, for me and the fish.

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