North Umpqua River Steelhead

Pricing:  $550 per day
Season:  November– April, June – October
Species:  Wild Steelhead
EWA Cancellation Policy

A river with many faces, the Umpqua provides challenges for every season. Cascading whitewater and deep blue bedrock studded runs grace the North Fork providing picturesque opportunity for fly rodders in search of summer run steelhead from five to fifteen pounds. The thirty miles of fly only water are much the same today as when Zane Grey sated piscatorial urges here decades ago. These searun rainbows arrive in earnest from late June to the end of October and can be taken with skating drys or swung wets just under the surface. The North is not a fishery for those who shy form challenge. Wading can be tricky, but here reward is commensurate with effort. The dynamic explosion of a large healthy fish attempting to rip the reel from its seating combined with some of the most scenic landscape in the West makes for an adrenaline rush and memorable angling. Late winter and early spring finds winter run steelhead available in the North Fork as a precursor to a healthy fall chinook run. These are selective biters and not for the angler who is short on patience.

The main stem of the Umpqua from the confluence of the North and South forks provides outstanding smallmouth bass fishing from June through September. Hundred fish days are not uncommon with two to four pounders abundant and eager for buggy patterns both subsurface and on top. Your arm will wear down before the fish do here on one of the Wests’ most prolific smallmouth fisheries.