North Fork Feather & Middle Fork Feather Rivers - Late May 2020

Fished the boulder gardens of the North Fork Feather River below Belden. Ended up only fishing a few hours because of catching too many large suckers/squawfish. There were some trout in this section and I did catch a decent sized rainbow, but it got too annoying having to reel in a 20" sucker with the 2wt I was using. Too bad as the river had great water to hold larger trout and the oak tree canyon was scenic. 

Maybe this river gets too hot during the summer? gets hammered by Chico locals? seemed like it should have held more trout. 

North Fork Feather River

River had a western Sierra feel too it with the oak trees. 

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Decided to drive back up the hill over to the Middle Fork Feather and fish the section near Sloat along the train tracks.

Took a long hike in the heat and made it to the tunnel at the end of the tracks. River seemed to head down into a more rugged and narrow canyon from there. The tunnel was pretty cool and you could feel a cool blast from the darkness. The tunnel on google maps looks like it goes about 1/2 of a mile to a mile through a mountain.

Spring Garden Tunnel

Fishing was decent on this stretch, but not nearly as good as it was further downstream when I fished that area two years ago. Very scenic and serene. 

The rainbows fight very hard on the Feather river system. Guessing it is steelhead genes from young fish populations that got trapped above the dams when they were built a long time ago.

Not a lot of action but it felt good to finally get out and fish again. Was very rusty.

Middle Fork Feather River