They head upriver beginning in September and October, and provide good sport through November. By late November, they are well-distributed throughout the Rogue and begin spawning. The run is about evenly split between hatchery and wild fish. Both rainbow and cutthroat trout are present in the Rogue, and there are even a few brown trout and brook trout above Lost Creek Dam. Other rainbows are steelhead that lost the urge to migrate, and some are from ancient strains that persist in the headwater creeks.
Cutthroat trout are present and tend to occupy slack-water pools with overhead cover.
There is a signficant run of shad that comes up the river in late spring. They reach as high as Rainie Falls. Few people fish for them, however. The river begins on the slopes of Mt. Mazama, the blown-out volcano whose deep caldera hold Crater Lake. At its beginnings, the Rogue is a mountain stream that sometimes meanders through grassy meadoes, sometimes rushes through thick forest of Doublas fir.