2025 Lake Almanor Hex Hatch Fishing Report
The long awaited Hex Hatch report…a month later.
So sorry for the wait! I am in the process of making a new website so I sort of put this blog entry on hold. It’s still coming but I thought it was about time to share the details from the hex hatch. Stay tuned on the new website though as I will be doing a giveaway with Yakima and also giving away a Yeti cooler as well! Be sure to sign up on to the newsletter to stay informed.
Anyways! HEX! What an amazing season it was this year. First have to thank Ashley for letting me use her bass boat, “The Big Sipper”, for the duration of the hatch. I had a bunch of trips booked and I usually do them on my drift boat but wow, this changed things up a lot. It was so fun to be back on a bass boat and was a great reminder that I need a POWER BOAT! Grew up on power boats so I am going to add one to the fleet! It’s in the works so stay tuned for an announcement of when I get one so you can join me for more trips on Almanor and the California Delta.
The first week started off warm, a storm came in, cooled things down, created a hurricane on the water, then warmed back up again for the remainder of the season. We had high water temps early on this year with the water showing 70 degrees up top before my first trip even began. Came back down to 68 during the storm and then shot straight up again. I finished the season off sitting in 73 degrees. Now this is the top layer of the lake as we are pulling the fish up from the colder water down low. Although, I usually stop taking trips around July 2nd as that’s when it seems to be too hot to practice catch & release.
I did something new this year and grabbed more morning trips. Have to admit, my morning trips were a little slower than last years but we still were able to find a few fish and catch some smallmouth bass. I know the other guides hit springs out there in mornings and now that I’ll have a power boat for the 2026 season, I can start adding some springs for the mornings to my charts.
But we do the hex hatch for the evenings when the bugs are popping. And they were popping the first day I was out on June 15th and through the entire season. Even during that cold spell, Rocky Point had a hatch. I had just 2 days of slow fishing during the storm with small numbers of trout and plenty of catfish but things picked right back up when temps returned to normal. And when it was on, it was ON. So rad! Now the hex hatch isn’t a guarantee. You really have to pay attention to capitalize on grabs if you care that much. Me…well I leave the caring up to you but my goal is to always put you on. I am also about just being out on the water. I had a client or two who would watch bobbers drop or get grabs on the dry and say, “Eh, it’s cool, I am just glad to be here!” Ha! The best!
My goal was to find water away from the crowd. Which is hard at Rocky Point but you can do it. The fish came in every night at 8pm. The hoards of fish I mean. But you can get some early arrivals if you get out there early enough and fish deep enough. I noticed that my biggest fish came before all the boats showed up are when it was almost dark.
We didn’t get any pigs on the dry but lost a few quality bows because Andy likes to set like he’s frogging on the Delta. Haha! Just kidding Andy. I love you. And thank you. It was Andy’s year this year. But the dry fly action was on only about half of the time. I found an amazing fly that just seems to get bit! Even when there are 100’s of flies on the water, the fish seemed to always find ours. And of course, with the dry, you need to stick to it if you want that top water eat. And not all nights are the same. Some nights you see one riser, and some nights you see a bunch. You can stick with it if you want but promise it’s better to throw the dry when you see a good amount of risers. I can’t say if the high water this year affected the dry fly action but that is my guess as it wasn’t as prolific as it has been in the past.
I can’t say thank you enough to all of the people who came out to join me this year for the 2024 Lake Almanor Hex Hatch. I am blessed and grateful. I will be doing the same thing next year, June 15th-July 2nd so if you want a day, I suggest getting a deposit down so you don’t miss out on a chance to see the amazing hex hatch and catch some rad fish. Could be a catfish, a salmon, a sac perch, a sucker fish, a rainbow, a hitch, a smallmouth, a pike minnow, or a brown trout! Yep, we caught all of those.
If you want to know which flies I was using, please subscribe to my Patreon. You will get details on exact flies and depths and locations. Only costs ya $5 a month!
Plumas punch for the win! And by the way, the small mouth bass fishing was FUNNN! I will definitely be adding those types of trips to my portfolio. Those bass rip!
Love,
Mario