Navarro River

Fishing the Navarro River

The Navarro is a short coastal stream on the Mendocino coast, a winter steelhead river that winds through redwood groves beside Hwy 128 and meets the ocean at Navarro Beach. It has few broad gravel bars, so at most spots you have to wade to fish it well, and a boat covers it best of all. The mapped water starts at the Philo-Greenwood Rd bridge at Hendy Woods State Park near Philo, half a mile off Hwy 128. From there down to Paul Dimmick Campground, where the North Fork comes in, the river runs through private land with no bank access, so that stretch is for small hand-launched boats. Below Dimmick the middle section follows about 8 miles of redwoods down to the Hwy 1 bridge, and this is where nearly all the walk-in fishing is. Nobody drives to the water here: you leave the car in a Hwy 128 turnout and walk down, often on faint trails through heavy brush and poison oak, which stays green even in winter. Each turnout leads to a gravel bar, a pool, a run or a tailout. Below the Hwy 1 bridge the river becomes a deeper, channelized run, then spreads into tidewater over sand and mud flats at Navarro Beach. Steelhead are the reason to come, roughly November through March. Fish rest in the pools, behind big rocks and in slots along the far bank, so the heads and tails of pools repay the most time. In summer the sand beach turnout 3.7 miles up Hwy 128 is a swimming hole rather than a fishing spot. On the fly rod, a Gold Comet or Silver Comet, a Fall Favorite, a Boss, a Skunk or Glo-Bugs cover most days. Gear anglers drift roe, a Corky or a Spin-N-Glo, or cast a Little Cleo, a Panther Martin or a Kastmaster; at the mouth and around the Hwy 1 bridge, bait and lures do better than flies. Winter high water covers some bars and floods the campground at Dimmick, so pick spots that still leave you somewhere to stand. Drift boats need a winch at every launch, because the banks drop off too steeply to back a trailer in. Paul Dimmick, Navarro Beach and Hendy Woods State Park all have campgrounds, and the first two take RVs and trailers up to 30 ft. There is no lodging on the river itself; the nearest bed and breakfasts are at Elk and toward Fort Bragg. Regulations change and differ by section, so check the current California regulations before you go.