Hogan Brown is a known name in the fly fishing world, especially in the West. He’s a well rounded, seasoned veteran, and his trout flies are some of the best around. Ironically, if you talk to Hogan, you’ll quickly realize he’s actually not that much of a trout guy — or at least not anymore. These days, Hogan prefers to chase larger fish with more pound for pound fight. Hogan is one of the top dogs in the game of river striper fishing and has carved out a name for himself in the Northern California guide scene for years. Coming up alongside California Delta striper savants like Mike Costello and John Sherman — Hogan is dialed. Before his guide season kicked into full swing, we asked him to share his story and tell us more about making the switch from being a drift boat trout guy, to a dedicated river striper fiend.
~ Simms Fishing

In Northern California, when you say you’re a fly fishing guide or that you fly fish, most folks have a fairly pointed preconceived notion as to what that looks like and/or what that means. By and large, people envision drift boats, big western tailwaters, cascading coastal rivers, trout, and steelhead. The picture they’re painting in their mind is what I consider to be Instagram’s ideal image of the sport. It’s always interesting when I explain to them that no I guide and fly fish for bass. More often than not, that commentary results in a complexed look at best. Then, as I explain where I fish and how I do what I do, a perplexed look turns to a glazed over and confused look. It’s almost like the processing power of the human brain just can’t handle the idea that someone would want to fish for bass with a fly rod — let alone be able to stay busy guiding fly focused clients for bass. Like holding down the power button and running a forced restart, this is when I typically change the topic of conversation. I have been lucky enough to earn a living as a fly fishing guide for many years now. And while these conversations have become less common, they are still the norm.

Now — I did start out as a trout and steelhead guide, shoveling water and pushing a drift boat down the rivers of Northern California. In fact, that was my program for over a decade. However, over time, I realized that rowing a drift boat 200 days a year speeds up the expiration date on the functionality of certain parts of your body, usually the spine and the shoulders. I figured if I was going to guide and fish for the duration of my time on earth, I may need to work smarter, not harder.

In 2004 I started spending a lot of my free time chasing largemouth bass around ponds and small creeks surrounding Chico, California. I even found enough clients that wanted to fish for bass that I started sliding my drift boat into a few of these ponds to make a day of guiding out of it. The real gem though was the migratory run of stripers that would swim up the lower Sacramento River from the California Delta and San Francisco Bay through the Chico area.

At the time, the common understanding was that these fish would only eat sardines soaked on the bottom of the river or live minnows drifted down river — and, you only had until late May to do it. Essentially, when the American shad showed up, the striper window was closed. However, I started running into some, what I will call cagey old timers at a local watering hole that spoke of resident stripers that lived in the river year-round, which obviously sparked my curiosity.  Cagey is like saying the cartel or mafia is moderately private about their operations. By the time these guys were out on the river, the crowds of shad fisherman were gone and the hordes of salmon anglers had yet to show up. The river was pretty much empty, aside from the college tubers and occasional family jet boat trip out to cool off during the triple digit heat of the Northern California summers.

Many of these guys were still not happy with the level of anonymity that the lack of humans on the river provided, so some would fish at night exclusively. For me, it took quite an investment of bud light at said local watering hole to get these guys to crack and tell me more than just the simple fact that they fish the river for stripers all year. I’m not saying I bought a case or two and got them tipsy enough to talk, I’m saying I had to buy them one or two beers every time I saw them for a good six months to get to know them and prove I was not going to sell out their secret fishing program. What I learned from these guys was that most of the time — yes, they soaked sardines on the bottom of the river, but on occasion they would throw swim baits for stripers. I was smart enough to know that a Clouser Minnow was as good an imitation of a swim bait as any, and maybe, just maybe I could run a trolling motor instead of water shovels, at least for a few months out of the year. I borrowed five grand from my dad and bought what amounted to a boat that most people would associate with a horse trough. That first boat was definitely not a vessel fit for fishing. It was however solid and it floated. I strapped the mandatory old Johnson two stroke jet on the back and proceeded to run for the next 6 months up and down the Lower Sacramento River.

I would pull up to the boat ramps and see more stray cats than people to start with. It was amazing coming from the overflowing boat ramps of the Lower Sac and Lower Yuba River tailwater trout fisheries. Once salmon season opened up, I would see more boats and people, but they weren’t doing what I was doing. I would pull out my 9 weight fly rods and they would look at me like Big Foot just walked out of the bushes and decided to hop in a boat. Inevitably, they would ask me what I was fishing for, and I would tell them bass back in the sloughs. I never dared giving up my sources as to not attract any unwanted heat from the local striper cartel.

Initially, it was a major challenge. I just wasn’t able to spend quite enough time out there to really dial in the intricacies of the fishery. However, over time, I did feel confident enough to start taking a few quality clients out to explore. After a few times of actually getting into good numbers of stripers, I quickly lost interest in anything else. I just realized that pushing bobbers down a river from the seat of a drift boat was probably not going to get me too excited moving forward. Watching stripers crush bait, seeing client’s 9-weights bent to the cork, and having fish the size of small children follow flies to the boat, in a lot of ways, halted my interest in trout fishing. I say that with a grain of salt. I still love trout and trout fishing but it was just the fact the whole striper deal was a completely new fishery for me to figure out and dial in. And that in it of itself is an extremely addicting pursuit.  

Within the next few months, I did buy a legit center console guide boat, got a coast guard license, hocked a bunch of 5- and 6-weights to buy a bunch of 9- and 10-weights, and told myself that I’d accept going broke in order to morph into a full-time striper guide with some winter spotted bass guiding thrown in for good measure.

Here I am 15 years later and while it was rough, I’ve really never looked back. In the end, my story is my story, and we all follow our own path in this journey or sport we call fly fishing. In my mind, that’s the great thing about fly fishing. It’s less of a sport and more of a journey. Like most journeys in life, it can take you in many different directions and is constantly changing. An obsession with one fish can lead to an obsession for another fish. In this day and age, finding solitude on the water or a place that may not be crowded is almost more of a challenge than catching the fish once you get to where you’re going. There are more people fly fishing now than any other time period that I can remember — and that’s a great thing. I also feel the old 90/10 rule is as true as ever — 90% of the people fish 10% of the water. The way I look at it is, that means 90% of the water is somewhat untouched. If there’s a moral to my story, it’s to get out and explore. By all means go fish the known water, but don’t forget, there is inevitably so much more out there than the known water alone. If all we ever did was listen to the music that pop culture told us was good, where would we be today?