Reading your post makes me jealous. I have fished PC for ~ 3 years now and have only known challenge. There have been fleeting moments that I have known the tug and flight of a huge trout taking me to the reel and peeling off line only to come unbuttoned and leaving my jaw agape. They are still there but my impression is that they are getting more scarce and wiley. I remember my first few outings were frustrating. Steve took me out on the creek, gave me some tips and showed me some spots. After this and after gleaning information from the wise ones on this board, I have found considerably more success. I have fished a few other rivers on occasion and have not found better fish in terms of fight and quality. They may not be as consistantly big as they once were but these are wild and healthy thanks to the work of PCT and volunteers who care about this water. I am so happy that I have the PC as my home water - she may never see those Halcyon days of behemoth browns but she also is not a garbage filled slew either. She is becoming presentable.

Happy and safe holidays,

Dan

Thanks for the memories.  It's another case of how things change over time.  Very similar story to the Truckee.  Also to the Niners!  Personally, I do not get a chance to fish Putah much anymore.  The only time that really works for me relative to spawning season is  March-May, and honestly, that's primetime on another river I like to fish.  

Circumstances change, and Putah is sure reflective of that.  Fishing survey results would seem to indicate a turnaround is in process for the creek.  I'd like to think we've done some things to enhance this over the last couple of years with spawning bed restoration, spawning fish census as well as a general population census of the creek.

I would hope that the efforts are affecting the creek in a positive way.  My bet is that they definitely are.  Perhaps in a few more years, we are talking a great story about the continuing comeback of Putah Creek.

Bob   

I first fished Putah Creek around 64 when I got my drivers liscense.  I didn't start fishing it regularly until the mid 70's. My favorite memory is when I was wading up a chute about 10 to 15 feet wide with overhanging trees.  I was catching a fish almost at every cast when I looked up and saw what appeared to be Rodan flying around the corner.  The Great Blue Heron and I went into an evasive mode and just barely missed each other.  

Another time my buddy and I were fishing up by the bridge.  Back then there was an island in the center that you could just  barely wade to if you were careful.  We had just purchased the latest Red Ball waders that came with a little air bladder up by your chest that you blew air into.  Anyway we waded across to the island and still had to go around it to fish the run with big fish.  My buddy and I started forward and the water kept getting deeper.  Pretty soon we were floating the last ten feet supported by the air bladder.  Neither one of us said a thing as we were trying not to take any water into our waders. When we finally touched the bottom we starting laughting that the waders had worked.

Another time we went up in late winter and the creek was raging.  But you could see it had been 6 or 8 feet higher.  We started fishing and didn't do much until we noticed there were dead fish up in the trees.  They were decomposing and maggots were falling into the creek.  We searched our fly boxes for something small and white.  I think I cut up a fly that had white or gray in the body and my buddy found his own small fly.  We had a great day on what we now call the maggot hatch.

My favorite fly was a double renegade fished wet.  Starting in the spring I would fish the backwater along the road and catch 40 or 50 fish in a day.  By October, when the water first dropped I would wade across the creek and fish the trailer hole.  I would always catch at least one, and often several large trout in the 20 inch plus range.  One time I caught a huge fish in a hole and released him in front of a plug fisherman on the otherside of the river.  I then caught one even larger. While going to release it he tossed his plug right next to me and told me to put it on his hook if I was going to release it.  I told him to catch his own.   I used to fish with a small 8 foot five weight with the renegade and a dropper of some kind, usually a green rock worm.  Many times I caught a huge fish in a small hole and hung on as best I could in the fast water.  Several times I'd reached for a fish only to have it make a run and get the top fly caught in my finger. Ouch.

It mush have been the early to mid 80's when I first started seeing problems.  Someone, I assume from the campground by the bridge went in with a chain saw and clearer the brush along a stretch of the creek to make it easier to cast.  He eliminated the cover and the hole was never the same.  Then I started going up and would find several cars parked in the holes I liked to fish.  Then I found out that New Zealand mud snails were in the creek.  I'd take my waders and showes home and put them in a plastic bag and then put them into the freezer.  Once while up there I was fishing the far fork near the car hole when two guys came down and started fishing on either side of me.  I had to finally get out and walk way around them.  From then on I stopped going up as often as I used to.  Instead of 10 to 15 times a year I would go 1 or 2 times.  Now I go up once every year of so.   I think, part of the problem, is that they used to stock the creek.  When it became a Wild and Scenic the stocking stopped.  There are only a few places where trout can span and I often see people fishing the redds or wading through them.  Its still a lot of fun to fish, but now that I've retired and I'm 66 years old I just don't enjoy it the way I used to.  I don't mind not catching as many fish or as big, but I just don't enjoy the number of fishermen.

East Bay Ed

This is pretty much speculation, but I believe that the flooding of 2005 and 2006 really took a great toll on the stream and the stream is still in a recovery mode. During late March of 2005 the water in Lake Berryessa spilled over the Glory Hole and the stream flow exceeded 2300 CFS. In 2006 the flooding was even worse. In early January the stream flow hit an incredible 7180 CFS and in March it again exceeded 7000 CFS. Needless to say, the stream overflowed its banks and was unfishable for about two months. My belief is that the 2006 flooding not only wiped out the spawn of 2006, but also killed a lot of the young trout in the stream. I'm guessing this occurred because the smallest trout in the stream are the most vulnerable to stream problems. Then, if you fast-forward several years, it's easy to understand why the numbers of fish spawning have been drastically reduced; the population of now spawning-sized fish was decimated by the aforementioned floods. Like Greg, I believe that the stream is definitely recovering, but the process of re-generating its fish population takes a lot of time.

Risking a statement of the obvious, you'd have to say that the principal reason Putah produced far more fish 20 years ago is because many of them were put there whereas today none are.

The glory hole scouring the creek bed this year would be a good thing. The mud and weeds we have now have been increasing every year since the '06 topping last cleaned PC out. The best thing about the tube topping  over is there isn't the same silt load like that which comes out of Cold Creek and Thompson Canyon Creek spills.

You're pulling larger fish because you're using larger lures and they aren't really pressured during the summer, don't get too ****y. I pull them easily with streamers. It's better to see the large amount of smaller fish present. That means the population is starting to thrive.