Cold, spring-influenced freestone running through a forested canyon, and the home water of the native McCloud redband — which is reason enough to wade carefully on the bouldery bed. It's a river with a reputation, and for once the reputation holds up. Wild rainbows and browns sit in the runs and pockets. Once the runoff settles you can fish dries and nymphs to fish that have seen a fly before, and in autumn the big October Caddis gets them moving.
The McCloud comes off the slopes of Mount Shasta and runs through deep forest canyon as one of the most beautiful and storied trout rivers in California — the river the McCloud River redband evolved in, and the source, oddly, of the rainbow trout eggs shipped worldwide a century ago, so that a great many of the planet's rainbows trace home to this water. Below McCloud Dam and the Nature Conservancy preserve it's a wild freestone of cold, clear, often pushy water over volcanic boulder and bedrock, threading old-growth forest where the fishing is as much about the place as the trout. The bed is dark volcanic rock, slick and uneven; the canyon is steep and shaded. Wading is genuine, careful freestone work among big slippery boulders. The McCloud asks for effort and surefootedness, and gives back wild redbands in a cathedral of fir and cedar.
Wading: Big slick boulders, pushy water
- Mixed
- Confined
- Pool riffle
- Step pool
