Current Fishing Report

I spent this past week guiding and scouting on the Fall River and the Lower Sac. The trout season on the Fall is just getting underway, the weed beds are starting to grow in nicely and the rainbow's are starting to spread out and move down through the system. We hooked and landed a fair number of fish, mostly on the smaller side with an occasional 16 thrown in to keep things interesting. Still not a lot of bug activity yet but it should be in full swing soon and with it the larger fish should become more active too!The lower sac continues to fish well and fish are distributed evenly from Redding to Red Bluff, the flows are bouncing around the 7000 cfs mark which is a great level for fishing and boating.I will be guiding the Lower Sac and the Fall River throughout the summer season, Get Out there and make it happen ! 

Jerry with anice Sac River Rainbow !

Today was my first Fall River trip of the year.  It was great to get back up to Fall River Valley.  The river looks great from the red barns up to spring creek bridge with lots of weeds already.  Fish are spread out really well but there are tons of small fish.  We didn't find any really big pods of big fish.  My clients Andrew & Chris beat up on the small fish, though.  Action was pretty good throughout the day on small mayfly nymphs and streamers.  We hooked into a few larger fish, but it just wasn't a big fish day today.  We had a pretty calm day at first, but then the wind came up big-time in the afternoon.

I had a fun day on Battle Creek today with clients Dan and Frank.  Fishing was a little slower than usual and the fish were a bit smaller than we're used to.  Our biggest fish was about 10.  Usually there are some 12 fish in the mix.  We had tons of fun dry fly fishing, though.  As usual, there were some pockets that produced ten or more fish on dries.  We had good luck with a size 10 Royal PMX and a size 14 parachute Adams.

I took clients Norm and Harvey out on the Lower Sac today.  Our mission was to fish dries.  The PMDs and caddis were hatching in good numbers, but the fish weren't rising.  We resorted to fishing some nymphs in a few spots and landed some nice trout, all over 18.  We fished one spot where we could watch huge rainbows nymphing just under the surface, but they wouldn't come all the way up to eat a dry.  Finally we had some opportunities later in the day.  We rose 3 really nice fish on dries in two different spots.

I just returned from my epic Tarpon Tour in Mexico, and fished this past week on Fall River, the McCloud, Pit, and the Upper Sac.  Conditions were great, and crowds were the lowest I have ever seen them for this time of year, except for the lower Mac which was a circus this weekend.  If you know where do go, it doesn't matter though.   Fall River: There good numbers of fish around from Spring Creek Bridge down below Island Bridge.  Dry fly fishing and nymphing will improve every day, but the sinking line grab is pretty awesome right now.  I hooked 3 fish on my first 3 casts of the sas The Mac: Stones and big mayflies are starting to make their appearance.  The river is quite low for this time of year, and it is much easier to get around.  If you cover water, you can hook lots of fish...especially in the shade.  Fish a dry dropper skillfully in the pocket water, and you will pillage. Upper Sac:  Again, very low for this time of year, which makes it very fishable.  Try to fish the shade and pocket water with a dry dropper, or dredge the bottom with a dirty bobber rig.  Evenings are superb.  Pit: Not easy to get around, but fishing good for hard charging waders ready to nymph or fish a dry dropper.  The more water you cover, the more fish you will catch.  Availability is quickly diminishing for summer bookings.  June should be excellent, and the Hex Hatch should be all time this year.  Get your trip in the books. 

The river came up another 500cfs this morning.  Fishing was really slow until about 2pm, when the water cleared up and the slug of debris past by us.  Fishing was pretty good all afternoon.  We had fun wading a riffle that was loaded with mostly smaller fish.  Scott landed a nice fin-clipped steelie late in the day.  No dry fly fishing today, but the hatches should be better tomorrow as the bugs adjust to the new flow level.

yes wading is allowed on the Lower Sac

steelhead still hanging around

We had a banner day on the Lower Sac today.  The flows are now at 6500cfs.  We fished from the Posse Grounds to Bonnyview and found fish throughout the whole float.  The highlight was fishing some shallow riffles that were loaded with feeding fish.  My clients Burt and Scott landed a lot of 20+ rainbows on five weight rods.  The best fish of the day was a 23 rainbow landed by Scott on a small nymph.  Scott finished off the day by hooking a 16 rainbow on a dry.

Scott's big fish

Burt's big fish

We had a killer afternoon on the Lower Sac today.  I guided longtime friend Bjorn and his dad Chris.  The river came up today, from 5000 to 6000cfs.  Often times that much of an increase will throw the fish off, but not today.  The increased flow triggered a great caddis hatch and the big fish moved into the shallows to feed.  We caught a lot of fish over 20 today and many of them were sight-fished.  Bjorn landed two huge fish on a hopper-dropper rig while casting to fish that we could see nymphing in the shallows.  Fun stuff!

I had a fun half-day on the Lower Sac with Allen & A.J. from St. Helena.  It was their first day of fly fishing ever and they both caught on really fast.  They both landed some nice fish and got a good introduction to fly fishing.  There was a good mix of PMDs, caddis, and golden stones today.

Allen with a nice one

We fished dry flies pretty much all day long today on the Lower Sac.  We had action the entire time, too.  Richard from L.A. landed fish up to 16 on dries throughout the day.  The hatch was a mix of caddis size 14-16 and PMDs size 16.  The fish weren't easy, but a good drift with the right fly did the job every time.  We also took a break from the dry fly fishing so Richard could get familiar with his 7wt ACR spey rod.  Beautiful weather today.

On a dry fly

I guided Drew and Don from the Bay on the Lower Sac on Saturday. The Sac fished really well, all our fish came on nymphs, seems like most of the fish have moved back into there traditional lye's as the spawn is coming to a close. The fishing remained steady throughout the day with fish landed on our first drift till are last. Most of the fish we landed were in the 12 - 16 range and as with many good days the big ones got away, that's what keeps us coming back !

another nice wild Sac river rainbow

I took out Joe from Red Bluff and his buddy Mark from Australia this afternoon.  They both caught on to the nymphing game right away and the fish were really biting.  We hooked a lot of fish on nymphs, mostly small PMD nymphs.  We also found a great spot where the fish were rising to dries.  Both Joe & Mark landed fish on dries.  There are plenty of golden stones around still on the lower river.

Joe caught this one on a dry fly

The weather was outstanding today and the fish seemed to be in their happy place.  At least until we came along...   Fishing was very good throughout the day.  We had good nymph fishing and some excellent dry fly fishing.  Jerry and Craig from Sebastopol both landed some quality fish on dries today.  The highlight was skating caddis imitations on the surface and watching the fish chase them!

We fought with the wind today, but still managed to catch some very nice rainbows.  The PMD hatch was outstanding from 11am to 3pm - millions of PMDs coming off.  The wind kept the fish from rising, but they were chowing the nymphs, especially in the shallow riffles.  We did well with various PMD nymph patterns size 16-18.

We had a great day on the Lower Sac today.  The fish were chowing nymphs and dries in some of my favorite spots.  Kent from Tehachapi rose well over a dozen fish on dries after lunch, and the nymphing throughout the day was pretty outstanding.  There are PMDs, golden stones, and some caddis around right now.  Some nice fish are coming off the spawn and moving back into real trout water now.

wet wading & fishing dries

We started out with a lot of wind on the Lower Sac today, but it died down by mid-day.  Flows also came up to 3750cfs today.  It was nice to get some more water under the boat.  Some of the riffles I like to fish look a lot better now and fished fairly well today.  We caught a great fish over 20 in about a foot of water.  There was an excellent PMD hatch from 11am to 3pm.

I fled the valley floor today to escape the wind but it didn't work.  I took my client Kent from Tehachapi to Lewiston Lake.  We had about an hour of good fishing before lunch when we could spot cruising fish.  Kent caught a couple of nice rainbows before the wind came up.  After that it was whitecap city.  We eventually moved over to the Trinity River where we saw numerous salmonflies, but we couldn't tempt any fish.

The Lower Sac up in Redding is fishing fantastic if you are fishing through spawning trout, and so-so if you're not.  Most of the big fish are sitting on redds right now, and it's pretty obvious where the fish are spawning with the low flows.  The nymph grab was pretty tough today, but we still managed to land some quality wild rainbows from 16-19.  We even got a good grab on a dry fly.  The PMD hatch is still very good.

We fished the lower river today.  My clients Russ & Bob are headed for B.C. in the fall and wanted to get some more spey casting under the belt before their trip.  We fished 7 and 8 weight spey rods to get familiar with the rods they would use in B.C., then scaled down to 4 and 5wt spey rods for trout fishing.  The grab wasn't great, but we did swing up some fish on various nymph patterns.  We spent a lot of time in the afternoon dry fly fishing.  Our best fish was a 17 rainbow on a pheasant tail nymph fished 2ft under a grasshopper dry.  We had a ton of dry fly grabs on parachute adams and landed fish up to about 12 on dries.  Pretty fun stuff!

I've guided the past three days on the Lower Sac and the fishing has been Good. We've caught fish through out the day and with a multitude of techniques. We've caught them on dries, on nymphs with and with out indicators and on the swing with light weight spey rods.The Spring time is a great time to be on the Lower Sac, plenty of fish and the weather can be outstanding ! 

Tom with a nice Bow