Feather River

The Feather River is one of California's best-kept secrets – it's an awesome steelhead fishery. This tail-water fishery begins below the Oroville Dam and holds both hatchery-bred and wild fish. This stretch of the river is called the Low Flow section and the fishing can be fantastic. Hooking six or more fish on a trip is not uncommon and steelies in the 10-pound range are possible.

The Feather has two basic steelhead runs. The winter fish start to appear in late summer and continue to pack into the river as the calendar turns to fall. During this time, the egg-drop is on and the steelies are in prime shape.

The spring run arrives in early March and continues into June. These fish are hot and wild and they act like overgrown resident trout as they eat nymphs and slurp dries. The fishing is easy and fun, and on most days you have the river virtually to yourself.