Smith Alias: Steelhead Heaven : Free-Flowing Northern California River the Best Spot for the Big Ones

The drizzling remnants of a weekend storm do not dampen the optimism of Chuck Overson as he drives along the Smith River, home of California’s largest steelhead.

While a visitor admires the stands of stately redwoods, Overson, who operates Six Rivers Guide Service, studies the clear, emerald-green flow of the river.

“Your timing is perfect,” he says. “This water looks great. You should have great fishing tomorrow.”

But by dawn the next day the river is running faster and higher and has turned to a cloudy gray-green. Guide Jim Day is the voice of gloom.

“This river is marginal, at best,” Day says. “This ain’t gonna fish right now. (The high flows) blow out three-fourths of the holes. Hear the gravel movin’? Could have been a slide or a lot of rain up high.”

Day is right. Most anglers find the fishing futile. But 24 hours later the Smith’s mood has swung again.

“Boy, what a difference today,” Day says. “There’s half the water there was yesterday, and you can see five feet instead of one.”

That’s the Smith, an aptly named river whose ambiguities rival those of a motel register. One reason is that it’s a free-flowing system, with 3,100 miles of river and tributaries totally uncontrolled, the heart of the only remaining major undammed river system in the state--and certain to remain that way, since President Bush signed the Smith River Wild and Scenic Recreation Area Act last November.

Because it has a rocky bottom and lacks fine sediment in its watershed, it flushes and clears only hours after storms--days quicker than other North Coast rivers. The Indians called it Hiouchi-- blue-green.

“If this were the Eel, you wouldn’t be fishing for 10 more days,” says Fred Neighbor, a lawyer from Arcata who helped CalTrout push the protective legislation.

And so the guides, towing their banana-shaped drift boats, meet their clients for breakfast before sunup at the Ship Ashore Resort, behind the estuary where chinook salmon to 70 pounds will run the gantlet of sea lions and anglers on their spawning runs late next summer.

Now, from December until March, come the steelhead, not as large as the salmon but worth twice their weight in fight. The state record is 27 pounds 4 ounces, taken from the Smith on Dec. 22, 1976, by Bob Halley, a Crescent City construction worker. Catches of more than 20 pounds are common.

“They’re quicker and faster (than salmon),” Day says. “They run a lot faster when you hook ‘em. They’ll jump when you hook ‘em in the mouth. Salmon will normally only jump when you snag ‘em. A steelhead’ll come out of the water, ball up in the current and cartwheel, trying to roll out of the hook.”

Although more glamorous, a steelhead is nothing more than a sea-run rainbow trout. Found only on the West Coast of North America, they spawn in streams leading to the sea and may return more than once to spawn again--unlike a salmon, another anadromous (migrating) fish that dies after it spawns.

In saltwater the steelhead’s scales turn to silver--hence the name--and upon returning to their home streams they take on the darker rainbow colors again.

The Klamath River 35 miles south may have more steelhead but the Smith harbors the trophies. Why are the Smith’s steelhead larger? Even Dave McLeod, a Department of Fish and Game fishery biologist in Eureka, says, “I really couldn’t say.”

He suggests there may be better forage in the tributaries, where no fishing is allowed and fish are free to grow.

Jimmy Csutoras, a former guide, has a home on the north bank of the river that is almost a shrine to steelhead.

“They are to freshwater what the sailfish is to the ocean,” Csutoras says. “They’re hard to catch but they can be (out-)thought.”

We shall see, a visitor thinks.

Under a misty moon on the wane, Day drives up California 197, which joins California 199 leading to Grants Pass, Ore. He crosses the Neils Christensen Memorial Bridge on the Middle Fork of the Smith and launches his boat from a rocky beach below some rapids and above where the Middle joins the South Fork in a deep granite gorge flanked by thick stands of Douglas firs.

Pink cotton-candy clouds float across a blue sky in the early light. The river, marked at 22 1/2 feet the day before, is down to 17 feet and clear. The guides expect a good day. Day rigs spinning tackle with No. 1 hooks baited with floating “corkies” or spin-glows and clusters of steelhead roe, a minimum of 18 inches below three-quarter-ounce “slinky” weights, according to DFG regulations.

Two hours downstream, as they float past Jedediah Smith State Park, the visitor gets lucky. As the slinky bounces along the bottom, the rod tip suddenly dips as if inhaled by a vacuum and Day yells, “Reel! Reel!”

But the steelhead is bending the rod double and running line off the drag, ending its sprint with a grandstand leap 75 yards upstream. Some hard reeling, a short run, more reeling, a shorter run, some reeling and in five minutes the tired fish is near enough for Overson to net. The boat has drifted about 300 yards past anglers shore-fishing from the park.

The steelhead’s weight is estimated at eight or nine pounds--a couple of pounds below average for the Smith but a handful for a novice anywhere. The visitor understands why anglers come to the Smith for steelhead.

Halley, the record-holder, has lived in the area since 1950, when logging thrived, somewhat to the detriment of the river. Now, with only one mill remaining and operations prohibited within a quarter-mile of the river, logging no longer seems a factor, but locals say the fishery has diminished.

“The size hasn’t but the quantity has,” Halley says, noting that two steelhead, each weighing 26 pounds 10 ounces, were taken two years ago.

They may have originated from the Rowdy Creek Fish Hatchery, where Halley’s mounted trophy hangs. The private hatchery, at first opposed by the DFG because of state laws, was started by the Smith River Kiwanis Club in 1968 to perpetuate the steelhead and salmon. In the past year, with financial support from private donors and the DFG, it released a million chinook and a quarter-million steelhead.

“There’s a lot of (fishing) pressure, and they keep the season open too long,” Halley says. “These last two years have been terrible. You got to work a lot harder now.”

An angler must tolerate frequent snags on rocks along the bottom and, because he is using eight- to 10-pound-test leaders in the clear water, must be willing to re-rig several times a day. But that’s what guides are for.

The limit is two steelhead, and there is growing sentiment among locals for catch and release or a punch-card system to limit an individual’s seasonal take, as is used for salmon on certain waters, including the Klamath. Csutoras (pronounced Shooterus) says the greatest danger to the steelhead are the locals who know the river best.

“There’s a lot of technique to being a good drift fisherman,” he says. “This is more difficult than fly fishing.”

Csutoras noted an Oregon survey indicating that 42 man-hours of fishing went into every steelhead caught.

“The hardest part about catching steelhead is finding ‘em,” he said. “People may be getting skunked all up and down the river, but if you find where they are, you can catch all that are going to be caught that day.

“I don’t keep anything over 15 pounds now. The river’s been good to me. You’ve got to take care of a fishery. I don’t worry about the guy that comes up from L.A. once a year. I worry about the addict like me who’s as good as me. He can do a lot of harm. Nobody can eat 30 steelhead a year.”

After Oct. 1, if the river drops below a flow of 500 cubic feet per second, there is an automatic closure. Day, Csutoras and others think the DFG should close the season in March to prevent the take of hatchery size “half-pounders,” the smaller, juvenile steelhead working their way down to the sea.

“They should let them go back,” Halley says. “They say they don’t keep ‘em, but they do. You aren’t going to pay (a guide’s fee of) $125 to go down the river without keeping something.”

Csutoras prefers drift-fishing the Smith from shore, as most locals do. One of the best spots on the river, the “Cookie Jar,” is right behind his house. But he knows a few other places, too.

Before dawn another day, the river has dropped to 13 1/2 feet. Csutoras leads two anglers with flashlights down a long, steep bank to the “Lower Cooper’s” hole.

They will move several more times--to “the Forks,” “Brundeen,” “the Jed” and other spots, but will produce only one four-pounder.

“The water’s a perfect color,” Csutoras says. “It’s just devoid of fish.”

Along the road, another local expert, Steve Bradley, agrees: “The water temperature’s right and everything--47 degrees. They just aren’t where they should be.”

Csutoras partly blames the North Pacific drift-netters from Asia, who have illegally taken untold numbers of salmon and steelhead while ostensibly fishing for squid.

Research is difficult because the Smith is so big and the steelhead so elusive.

“They live out in the ocean,” Neighbor said. “You can’t tag these fish. We don’t know where they are.”

But McLeod said, “I haven’t noted a decline in the juvenile steelhead, and last year I found spawning steelhead everywhere.

“The adult steelhead is pretty sensitive. Salmon tend to be more visible, but (steelhead) hide pretty well.”

What McLeod means is, if catching steelhead were easy, this wouldn’t be the Smith.