North Umpqua River

The river

The North Umpqua runs out of the Cascades past Steamboat and Glide, and the 50 km between Rock Creek and Soda Springs is fly-fishing-only for steelhead — a regulation that has protected a swing-fly tradition going back to the 1930s. The fish are summer steelhead, they come in on low, clear water, and they are famously hard to catch on anything but a properly swung wet fly.

On this river

The greased line swing

Fish a floating line with no weight and a single wet fly. Cast 45 degrees downstream, mend once immediately to control the sink of the fly, and once more 10 metres into the swing. The fly should travel broadside to the current at a walking pace. A take is usually a single heavy pull rather than a series of taps.

Where in the pool to stand

Steelhead sit in the upper third of a pool and in the seam where the fast water dumps into it. That means your first cast should land near your own bank at the head of the pool, not across it. Working a pool from the head down with short casts covers the fish you can actually reach and leaves the middle alone.

Fishing the October caddis dry

For two weeks in late September and early October the large orange caddis returns at dusk and steelhead will rise to it, which is unusual enough that people plan whole trips around it. Use a #8 dry on a floating line, cast across and let it swing, and resist the urge to set the hook at the first splash — wait until the line comes tight.