Middle Fork Feather River Fishing Report 3-17-25

The fishing on the Middle Fork Feather River is good to great depending on the day. Excellent blue wing olive mayfly hatches are occurring most days with fish keying in on mergers and duns at the peak of the mid afternoon hatch. I saw my first Skwala stonefly on yesterday’s guide trip but had no topwater eats. It’s only a matter of time before they get active and become a main staple of the trout.

We are still mostly fishing dry/dropper rigs and switching to a single dry when the hatch really gets going. I’ve still been swinging sculpins on the Trout Spey set up with some success. Swinging soft hackles during the BWO hatch is starting to get better. Tight line and indicator numbing is a good choice when fishing heavier stonefly nymphs.

Water temperatures have dropped a few degrees to the low to mid 40’s after the latest storm and flows have bumped up to just under 300cfs on the Portola gauge. Visibility is good at 2-3′ and with minimal snow on the ground, access is very good. We are finding fish in a variety of water types but they are mostly in the slower deeper stuff. We did find a few last week in the heads of riffles as the two hatch really got going. On yesterday’s guide trip we couldn’t buy a grab in the faster riffles.

What’s Working

Nymph’s: Plastic Surgeon (14-16), Crystal Warrior (14-16), Raindrop Perdigon (14-16), Electrolyte baetis (14-16), jigged pheasant tail (16-18), Simple Skwala (8), Pat’s Rubberlegs olive/black (8,10), jigged 20 Incher (8-10) Dries: Sparkle Flag BWO (14-16), Parachute BWO (14-16), Film Critic (14-16), Parachute Adams (14-16), Griffiths Gnat (18-22) Streamers: Sculzilla olive, natural, white, cream (8-10), Dolly Llama olive/white, natural (8-10), wooly bugger black, olive, white (10-14), jigged bunny leach olive, natural, white (8-10)