Feather River Yields Bright Chinooks Below Thermalito Afterbay Outlet, Charlie Myer, The Fish Sniffer Online

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Feather River Yields Bright Chinooks Below Thermalito Afterbay Outlet

By: Charlie Myer
June 15, 1997

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Big, Bright, Feather River Salmon The Feather River is one of the few Central Valley tributaries that still has a fishable spring run of chinook salmon. The run showing in the Feather now below the Thermalito Afterbay outlet is one of the best that anglers can remember seeing in recent years. "We've seen four times the amount of fish weighed in so far this year as we did by the same date last year," said Wade McGrath at McGrath's Fishing and Diving Supply.

Associate Editor Chris Dunham and I fished the Feather River below the outlet with guide Raith Heryford on June 12. The fishing had been good for the past several days; his trip on Wednesday produced four salmon for two anglers, while a trip on Tuesday yielded one salmon for one angler. When we arrived at the river, there were about a dozen boats from the riffle above the outlet to the riffle below the outlet. We fished Gibbs Minnows for several hours, but the action was slow; we lost two fish and didn't boat any. We saw two anglers in an aluminum boat who caught two fish, one on a Flatfish and one on a Gibbs Minnow. Also, two anglers fishing with Will Block of Will's Wild Sports nailed two salmon in the 10 to 12 pound class.

Raith decided to back troll Kwikfish and Flatfish in the riffle below the outlet. I put on a green bill Flatfish with silver body and began backtrolling. Just as I was about to doze off, my rod started bouncing as a big chinook hit my lure. The fish made a couple of runs, but was in the net in about four minutes. It was a beautiful, bright spring chinook, my first ever.

That was the only fish that we boated. We saw other anglers hook salmon while fishing spinners from the bank or canoes. Clynt Bassett of Sacramento nailed a 21 pound king while fishing a Mepp's #5 double bladed spinner above the outlet. We saw only a couple of shad hooked by the shore anglers. For more information on spring chinook fishing on the Feather River, call McGrath's Fishing and Diving Supply at (916) 533-8564 or Raith Heryford (916) 674-5871.