The trout in California's McCloud River are measured in pounds rather than inches, but before you start packing your tackle, I must tell you that the McCloud, more than most rivers I've fished, requires a long-term commitment. You must court this river as you would a lover, learning its moods and seasons. Only then will it reveal its secrets.

The McCloud can be devilish. Days on which all the conditions seem right can produce only the occasional small fish, while bright, hot days, when the alders and big leaf maples droop in the still air and neither bird nor bug stirs, can produce remarkable fishing. You'll need the right tackle and techniques, a good deal of persistence, and a measure of luck to hook up with big fish consistently. But for me, their presence is a powerful incentive, and the canyon is so pristine that no day spent there is disappointing. Some days just produce more fish than others.

Occasionally the water is clear enough for sight fishing. In the summer of 1996, Dave Longanecker, a fisheries biologist and McCloud regular, took nearly an hour of careful presentations and fly changes to land an 8-pound brown. This was the biggest fish taken recently, but certainly not the only one present. I've seen huge fish, as big as a salmon, leap from the water.

There is another compelling reason to make a journey to the McCloud: The river holds a key place in American angling history. It was from the McCloud in 1874 that the first rainbow-trout eggs were collected and shipped to pioneer fish culturist Seth Green and others in the East and Midwest. These eggs, and those from the Russian River drainage north of San Francisco, produced the rainbows that have been distributed worldwide. Anglers in New Zealand, Argentina, the British Isles, and across the United States fish over trout with McCloud genes.

The early fish culturists could not have chosen a finer strain--fish of singular beauty, broad and muscular, distinguished by deep red sides and small irregular black spots across their flanks. Perfectly adapted to the cold, clear fast waters of the McCloud, these trout personify everything we love about the species: aggressiveness, surpassing beauty, willingness to take a dry or a nymph, acrobatic agility. These same pure-strain rainbows still live in the McCloud. The impulse that sent rainbows around the world brought browns from Germany and Scotland to the McCloud at about the turn of the century. These bright fish add an extra measure of excitement to the fishing.

The only dam on the McCloud was built in the 1960s. Water releases below the dam are kept between 150 to 220 cubic feet per second (cfs), creating ideal tailwater conditions through nearly eight miles of river available to anglers. Five miles are public water within the Shasta Trinity National Forest. The lower three miles are the McCloud Preserve of the Nature Conservancy, limited to ten rods a day. The water is cold: 48 degrees Fahrenheit at the dam, warming to the low 50s as it flows down the canyon, shaded by the dense forest canopy of fir, pine, and alder.
The steepness of the terrain and more than 100 years of private ownership have left the canyon remarkably intact. Magnificent old trees march up from the river's edge. On June afternoons, as the warm breeze drifts up the canyon, it carries the strong, sweet fragrance of the native azalea and Shasta lilies. It is a measure of the wildness and the profound beauty of this place that the river has for years been considered for wild and scenic status. It seems likely to achieve that status eventually.

Like most waters in northeastern California, much of the McCloud rises in the vast system of springs characteristic of the volcanic terrain. The river flows due south from Mt. Shasta, the 14,000-foot volcano that dominates the northern California landscape.

The McCloud is a river of large pools followed by runs and pocketwater; it has no riffle water. The average depth in the pockets and runs is four feet, and the bottom is a mix of large rocks, cobbles, and gravel. It can be crossed in many places, but choose your spot carefully. The water is fast and cold, and the pools are long and deep, often with steep cascades at their heads.

When I first came to fish the McCloud in the mid-1970s, I rarely ended the day without a bruise or a scrape, a sore shin or a skinned nose. I thought the McCloud was the toughest wading I'd ever encountered. In the intervening years, I have spent so many days scrambling around in the Pit River canyon, 50 miles to the south, that the McCloud now seems positively easy. Still, it commands respect. Chest waders with felt soles and a stout wading staff are necessary.

The McCloud lends itself to all styles of fishing. There are wonderful dry-fly opportunities during the golden stone and salmonfly hatches in May, the summer-long emergence of Pale Morning Duns, Baetis, and caddis, and the fall hatch of the big October Caddis. McCloud regulars spend most of their time fishing nymphs, switching to dries when the fish begin to rise. But the McCloud can fish well with dries all the time. Many members of the private clubs downstream of the Conservancy fish only dry flies with bamboo rods.

Streamer-fishing Jolts
Puffball nymphing is precision fishing, with its stack mends and subtle takes, but for pure adrenaline-pumping, rod-bending juice, nothing compares to the grab of a big trout on a streamer. It's a jolt of pure carnivorous electricity up your arm and into your brain; that feeling of being connected to something elemental in the depths of the pool. Streamer fishing may be the biggest appeal of the McCloud. The long, deep pools are made for streamer fishing, and the big resident fish are highly piscivorous.

Streamers call for a rod with more backbone than the puffball rig. My favorite outfit is a fast-action 9 1/2-foot, 7-weight, with a Teeny 200 sinking-tip line. I use a 5-foot tapered leader (old dry-fly and nymphing leaders work for this purpose), add 2X or 3X tippet material, and attach my streamer with a Duncan loop to get the maximum swimming action.

The Teeny line transitions smoothly from the 26-foot sinking section to the floating running line. It casts like a shot and mends easily. I can swim my fly in whatever manner I wish. Usually, I cast upstream into the fast water at the head of the pool and throw a couple of quick stack mends to let the sinking part get down as fast and deep as possible. I keep short 3-foot sections of lead-core trolling line, with loops on both ends, in my vest. I add these 3-foot mini-heads to the Teeny if I don't feel that I'm down deep enough.

After the cast, I throw a big downstream loop, let the current catch the line, and begin swimming the streamer downstream. I put the rod tip down into the water and start retrieving. Fast, jerky strips work best for me. I want to imitate a frightened baitfish escaping downstream. Art Teter, one of Clearwater's guides, is fond of saying that you can't strip the fly too fast. But Art is just as likely to retrieve the fly slowly, feeding line into his loop as it moves downstream to maintain a steady drift speed. In either case, both of us are careful to swing our flies in front of rocks where big fish wait to ambush small trout or minnows.

I'm partial to #4 and #6 black marabou leeches, with or without chenille bodies. A Woolly Bugger in black, brown, or green is effective, as is the Thunder Creek series. Art likes wool-head sculpins. He also uses wet flies and his own soft-hackled versions of popular nymphs fished on floating or sinking-tip lines.

Art has developed an interesting technique to present his streamer to big fish lying in front of rocks in the meandering currents on the edges of the river's main flow. The technique entices fish to take by giving them two looks at the streamer, one swimming downstream and one turning to escape across or upstream. Art positions himself 40 or 50 feet directly above the rock to which he plans to fish. With a minnow or trout fry pattern knotted to the leader of his 10-foot high-speed, high-D sinking-tip line, he first casts for distance (to get the proper length of line) downstream and well off to the side of the rock, stripping only enough line off the reel to have the streamer hang directly in front of the rock at the final presentation.

Gathering up the line again, he holds the fly in his hand, and keeping his rod tip above the water, feeds the floating section of the line downstream until the loop in the line is 12 to 15 feet above the rock. Then he drops the fly and tip section of the line into the current at his feet. He immediately begins to retrieve line at a rate that will hold the belly in the line at the same position 12 to 15 feet above the rock. This is the critical step. It's important to control the loop and the rate of descent of the fly.

By the time the fly nears the rock, it is at the trout's level, about midway in the water column, swimming leisurely downstream. As the line straightens out in front of the rock, Art sticks his rod tip into the water and begins an erratic retrieve to simulate an escaping fry or minnow surprised by the sudden appearance of a big trout. Art figures that giving the fish these two views of the fly doubles his chances of getting a take. He gets plenty of takes.

Shortline Nymphing
I use two nymphing techniques: true short-line nymphing with a tiny indicator or no indicator at all, and another technique that we in this part of California call "puffball nymphing," after the nature of the indicator we use.

Successful McCloud nymph fishers pay particular attention to reading the water, especially the seams and slots that provide depth and cover for big fish. In May and June and again in the fall, the water is very clear, and nymphing anglers must approach the holding water carefully, paying attention to the sun angle and the shadows on the water. The trout favor the shadows. The shallow pockets and runs, up to a couple of feet deep, can provide plenty of action for average (8- to 14-inch) fish. Most anglers are content with these bright wild rainbows and browns.

If big fish are your quarry, though, present the fly in the deeper parts of the runs and big pools. A thoughtful approach and attentive short-line nymphing in this water can be rewarding. As the water depth approaches five feet, it gets tough to achieve a decent short-line drift. Here I use the puffball nymphing technique, an innovation pioneered on the McCloud and other northern California waters by local anglers Dean Schubert and Dave Hickson. It is a wonderfully simple solution to the challenge of presenting a nymph drag-free in deep water.

Puffball Nymphing
The puffball--a large poly-yarn indicator--acts as both a float and an indicator, suspending the fly at the chosen depth and signaling the slight hesitation that can mean a take. To rig for puffball nymphing, start with a 7-foot 4X or 5X tapered leader. Cut a 4-inch length of polypropylene macrame yarn and comb it to separate and fluff up the individual strands. Fold the yarn in half, tie it directly into the end of the tapered leader with a Duncan loop, and pull the loop tight against the indicator. Grease the indicator and trim it to the size you want. For most puffball nymphing, I prefer an indicator about the size of a large olive. Next, use another Duncan loop to tie a length of 5X or 6X tippet around the leader above the indicator and slide the tippet knot down against the indicator; tighten it so that the tippet hangs at 90 degrees to the leader. Add the fly or flies and a bit of weight, and you're ready to fish.

Tie the puffball on with a Duncan loop. Tie the tippet to the leader with an improved clinch knot. Add a fly and split-shot. The turnover point occurs when the fly is drifting naturally directly below the indicator.

My goal with this rig on the McCloud is to dead-drift my nymph at different depths in the deep pools and runs that hold the big trout. I cast upstream into the fast water at the head of the pool and immediately throw a tight, fast roll cast--a stack mend--at the indicator to flip it a few feet upstream. This takes the pressure off my tippet and fly, allowing it to sink faster. Once my fly has achieved its maximum depth, more stack mends create additional "turnover points," moments when the fly is truly drifting neutrally, as a natural nymph would drift. This is most attractive to the trout. By paying careful attention to the drift and the water, I set up those turnover points at the places that look the most fishy to me.

Any hesitation of the indicator--a pause, dip, turn, or twitch--is my signal to set the hook. With a long length of tippet below the indicator, it's critical to respond to the slightest suggestion of a take. As the puffball drifts past me, I drop my rod tip to the water and mend line out to continue the drag-free drift through the entire length of the pool.

Cast upstream and immediately make a stack mend to flip the line and indicator upstream a few feet. Mend repeatedly to keep the fly drifting naturally. Wiggle out line to extend the downstream drift.

Often the big fish will hold near the tailout, particularly early in the morning and in the evening. I am careful to cover all the fishy water. When I fish this way, I start shallow and add tippet to be certain that I have fished all levels in the water column. Some of the pools are very deep, perhaps as much as 20 feet. Only when my fly ticks the bottom am I confident that I have fished the entire water column. I might start at six feet and go down in 2-foot increments until my fly drags bottom.

For this type of fishing, my guides and I use long, progressive-action rods, often with a double-taper line one size heavier than what the rod calls for, to make roll casting easier. We keep our casting loops open to avoid the tangles guaranteed in a system that involves a big, wind-resistant indicator and several feet of fine tippet with BB split-shot. Be patient with the initial challenges of puffball nymphing; it takes getting used to, but it repays your efforts handsomely.

Seasons and Trails
The McCloud gets the greatest pressure in the spring and early summer and again in the fall. In mid-summer, when temperatures on Mt. Shasta are the highest, aptly-named Mud Creek begins flowing off the mountain, carrying glacial silt and volcanic ash into the river, turning the water a milky green. Some anglers prefer this time of year. With few anglers onstream and milky water to mask their approach, they find the big fish less wary and easier to catch.

October and November see heavy fishing pressure. The browns begin their spawning rituals, and their aggressive behavior is often their undoing. Studies have shown that some lake browns come into the river in the spring and remain there through spawning in November and December. These studies also showed that there is a separate population of resident browns in the river. In other words, there are plenty of big fish around from Opening Day the last Saturday in April, to the close on November 15.

Trails along the McCloud, mostly on the west side, provide access. The Pacific Crest Trail crosses the river a mile and a half below the dam and provides access to the upper river. You can walk the trail within sight of the water and choose the reach you'd like to fish. The middle river is easily accessed from the fine Forest Service campground at Ah Di Na. There is an excellent trail on the entire three miles of the Nature Conservancy section.

The Conservancy water is limited to artificials with barbless hooks and is strictly catch-and-release. Above the Conservancy, it is also artificials only, but anglers are allowed to keep two fish per day under 14 inches. Most fly fishers in the McCloud canyon are dedicated to catch-and-release. Trout grow quite slowly in the cold water; it takes a McCloud rainbow an extra year to achieve the comparable size of the same age trout in the nearby Pit or upper Sacramento rivers. For those who would take a fish for their campfire dinner, make it a brown; leave the native rainbows.

The McCloud is a river worthy of a pilgrimage. The promise of big fish may bring you there, but I suspect you will quickly fall under the spell of the place. The remoteness and rugged beauty of the canyon, the clear, cold water with its bright native rainbows and wild browns, and the sense of the McCloud's place in fly-fishing history imbue the river and its surroundings with a special magic.

Dick Galland owns Clearwater House on Hat Creek, a full-service fly-fishing lodge in Cassel, California, one hour south of the McCloud.

On-Line Catalogs
A.A. Outfitters Full service, fully stocked flyshop located in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania. Allen Brothers Quality Fishing Flies Quality is more than just a word. We use Daichii hooks and all our beadheads are tied with tungsten. Check out unique variations on a lot of the classics, plus our original patterns! Angler's Pro Shop The finest products the fly fishing industry has to offer. Bighorn Fly and Tackle Shop Montana's premium fly shops, lodging and guide service. We're dedicated to helping you experience the best Montana has to offer. Bob Henley's TIE-A-FLY 19 traditional patterns. TIE-A-FLY kits have all materials needed to tie them, instructions/illustrations, a pre-tied fly to use as a model. Gary LaFontaine's "The Book Mailer" Every angling book & media in print—10% off 3 or more. LaFontaine fly patterns & materials. FREE anti-catalog. Crystal Fly Shop Online Store Quality products at reasonable prices from Winston, Elkhorn, St. Croix, Galvan, Solitude, Idylwilde, Chota, etc. Many items 15-35% off. Custom Fly Rod Crafters Fly rod building components, tools & supplies. Dan Bailey's Online Fly Shop Outfitting fly fishermen since 1938. Equipment & information to make your next fly fishing trip be a memorable one.		Fly Fishing Flies & Gear Shop RiverBum.com for premium FLIES and GEAR from Simms, Sage, Fishpond & more ... Free Shipping on orders over $25! FlyShack.com High quality, hand-tied flies. Assortments from $.60/fly. Great selection and excellent service. Free Shipping. FlyShopCloseouts.com Now—new and expanded—with much more brand name fly fishing tackle and gear at huge savings. Save 30-50% on quality brands you will recognize in an instant. Galloup's Slide Inn Online Fly Shop Full online store offering cutting-edge flies, equipment, and the best streamer selection found anywhere in the U.S. Hills Discount Flies Fly shop quality flies at wholesale prices. Over 1,000 patterns. Check out bargains in "Hot Deals" section. Hooked On Flies 65¢-69¢ a fly. That's 3 flies for less than the retail price of one fly. 450+ Trout Fly Patterns! Madison River Fishing Co. Spring is coming! We have TONS of new gear this year. Cloudveil, Simms, Sage, Under Armour, Vosseler Reels and lots more. Click or call 800-227-7127 for catalog. **Reelflies** - Fly Fishing Flies Offering incredible prices on top-quality Trout Flies: $0.49 - $0.79. Our flies have great fly illustrations . . . what you see is what you get! www.ShopUltimateAngler.com Your steelhead and smallmouth specialists featuring Simms, Sage, Patagonia, Orvis, guide services, local fishing reports and more!