American River @ 30,000 CFS

This morning, I had an opportunity to drive my lovely wife to work.  What a great occasion to swing by Watt Ave. American River access to checkout the river conditions when the access is closed to the public.

Here are a bunch of pictures to "wet" your appetite.

Neat art work that I did not notice before.

Looking West - Boat ramp and parking lot are under water.

Looking North - Parking lot is under water.

Looking East

Looking downstream from the Watt Ave. Bridge.

Uh...

Still looking downstream - The island in the middle is submerged.

On the East side of the river looking West.

Upstream from the East side.

Upstream from the West side.

Upstream West side parking lot is under water also.

Just a week ago, December 10, when the rain started, I woke up at 3 AM thinking about fishing at Gristmill Access, but the rain was pouring and I went back to bed.  Now my brother Dave aka "Fish Whisperer" braved the rain and gave us this awesome report!!!

"We all know that rain makes cornJ But not all know that rain equals fish…at least this is what I was telling myself as I found myself on the banks of the American early Saturday.  I’ve never fished the south side of Gristmill & was all grins to find it all to myself.  I did see a guy walking his dog in the rain with young son & he was kind enough to tell me all he knew about the drop offs & where the fly fisherman like to hang out.  Given that I had two rods(fly & spinning),  I decided to start off with my favorite new obsession…Fly Rod baby!  The info from the guy really payed off as I was quickly in a nice looking spot.  With recommendation from Diplo I fished an indicator & worked the entire drift to perfection.  All my casts where looking great & feeding exactly where I wanted.  Even though the water looked trouty I couldn’t get a bite.  After a good hour plus I switched over to spin rod & worked the same entire run of water with no luck.

So I went down river to Watt Ave & things got much more interesting.  After crossing over to the island downstream of the bridge I got a strong take down on the indicator, but missed it.  Very next cast I got another one in same location.  Had this one halfway in & then lost him.  I spent the next 30 minutes hooking into these small steelies, but couldn’t manage to bring one to hand.  Due to the heavy rains the current was coming down on me in 3 different directions.  This is all I could figure as I kept losing them in the same area where the current changed(I was also fishing flies that were barbless).  Anyhow as a new fly angler I’ll be quick to take part of the blame(if not all of itJ).  Anyhow it was so fun getting all this steelie action on the fly rod(they were small fish, but who cares!).

As the rains increased and leader getting stretched like a child’s Christmas list, I ended the day by switching back to a spinning rod.  Wasn’t long until I hooked into something that took me down stream quickly thrashing the surface.  Given the weight I believe it was a spawned out salmon.  Ended up losing him in rapid which ended a great day of action.   This was the most back door action I received in a while, however I’m still in lingo…fly rod or spin rod?  Well at the moment I say both(got to have the best of both worlds!)."

Fish Whisperer - Gristmill Fly Fishing

Fish Whisperer - Gristmill

Fish Whisperer - Watt Ave. before flooding.