Mattole River

Read the regulations before you read anything else about the Mattole. It is open to steelhead fishing only from 200 yards above the mouth up to Honeydew Creek, the season that matters runs January 1 through March 31, and CDFW closes the whole reach any time the Petrolia gauge sits under 320 CFS. Inside those limits it is a wild winter steelhead river and nothing else. There is no dam, no hatchery and no stocking, so every steelhead you hook is wild and goes back. Most run 5 to 10 pounds, a few each winter reach the teens, and a 20-pounder is a rare but real possibility.

The Mattole drains about 245 square miles of steep, rain-fed Lost Coast hills with no snow, so it comes up hard and drops fast. In January 2026 it peaked at 11,300 CFS at Petrolia and fell under 2,000 CFS in six days, then under 1,000 CFS in two weeks. The window to hunt is roughly 600 to 1,800 CFS on the drop, when the water turns from brown to green, usually three to five days after a big storm. Under about 1,000 CFS it is a wading river of gravel bars, long tailouts and boulder pockets. Swing a sink-tip and a pink or purple leech through the bigger runs, or fish an egg and a small stonefly nymph under an indicator in the softer seams. The catch is the other side of the drop: a dry spell of three or four weeks pulls it back to the 320 CFS line, and the river closes until the next rain. That happened on February 7, 2026.

Getting there is half the trip. Mattole Road is narrow, steep and prone to winter slides, and it is 1.5 to 2 hours from Eureka by way of Ferndale, or about an hour from the Honeydew exit off US 101. Petrolia and Honeydew each have a small store and not much else, and there is little to no cell service. Most of the river runs past private ranches, so fish the public water at Mattole Beach and Lighthouse Road, the Petrolia bridge, A.W. Way County Park and the Honeydew bridge, and ask before you cross a fence. Chinook, coho and steelhead here are all listed as threatened. Keep fish in the water, and give spawning fish on redds a wide berth in February and March. Check the CDFW low-flow page before you leave pavement.