Trip Report: Merced River on the Fly

Yesterday I got the opportunity to fish my favorite river in the valley, the Merced. The Merced is far enough off of the beaten path that almost no one goes there to fish, and even those people that do fish it don't float it, so the only access a very small portion of the river. Now I know what you're thinking,"Isn't the Merced closed to fishing from October 31st to January 1st?" It is true that the portion of the river below Crocker-Huffman dam (anadromous waters) is closed to fishing from October 31st to January 1st to protect the salmon that spawn in the river, but we found a stretch that runs from Merced Falls to Crocker-Huffman Dam. Since this portion of the river is between 2 dams, no salmon spawn there so it is never closed.

Brrrr! Got out to my truck in the morning to leave and it was totally iced over.

Drew, one of my co-workers, and his buddy arrived at the put in promptly at 6:00am. In order to access this stretch of river you have to paddle across an afterbay of lake McSwain and protage around one of the dams, so I wanted to get there early so we could start fishing at first light (my WAF account was low, but since the co-worker that invited me isn't available often, I was allotted a half day and wanted to maximize my fishing time).

Our launch. Beautiful day.

Once our paddle and portage was complete, we arrived at the promise land. In the hole below the dam there were trout jumping everywhere! We spread out and started fishing. My co-worker, his buddy and myself were fly fishing and Drew was throwing a spinner, so we had the artificial bases covered. Within 5 minutes we had all caught and landed our first trout. We then proceeded to catch another and another and another.

First fish. Caught on a San Juan worm.

Even with technincal difficulties we still caugh fish.



Doing some rigging.

Working the hole below the dam.



Double!

It was literally either hooking up or at least getting a strike every cast. From that first hole we caught and landed 20 plus trout, although I will admit that we caught so many I lost count. The fishing was even better than anticipated! On top of the fishing being great, the hole below the dam had a perfect eddy for side-drifting in my Coosa, so I got to land several fish while in my kayak. All happy campers, we proceeded to float the rest of the river. Being that this was the first time I had floated this stretch of river and I was on a time crunch, I only brought one fly rod and it was rigged to nymph, which allows me to fish deeper water. Most of the riffles and runs we encountered were broad and shallow and would have perfect for swinging streamers, so less fish were caught in the rest of the river than could have been. Oh well, I will be better prepared next time. I still picked up about 10 fish during the rest of the float, bringing my overall total to around 20 fish landed and around 60 fish for the group. You can't ask for a better day than that.

Drew with a 14 incher.

Nice fish with Coosa in the background.

Look at the tail on that thing.

This stretch of river is broad without very many overhanging obstructions. Not only that, but, there are several eddies which allow those in kayaks to safely side-drift, allowing avid kayak fishers to catch fish while in their boat. Overall, this is the perfect kayak float. See you on the water.

-Bill

One happy fisherman.