Fly Fishing the Upper Sacramento With Someone Who Knows How to Fly Fish the Upper Sacramento.
By Tom Chandler on Feb 4, 2007 in Fishing Report, Upper Sacramento
Winter continues to stumble along, uncertain what it wants to be.
We’ve had little snow, a stretch of very cold temperatures, and now abnormally high temps.
The good news is that the warm, sunny afternoons are waking up the trout population (a little).
The bad news is that doesn’t necessarily mean your average bamboo-fishing dry fly snob is going to catch them.
Wayne’s fish. I’m not envious. Heck, it’s a nine incher. Tops.
On Friday, Wayne caught fish on nymphs, so on Saturday we ran to a good spot and actually found some rising fish, which I managed to put down relatively quickly.
In my defense, it was very tough water.
Not in my defense was an approach to the problem relatively unburdened by thought. Boys, I’ve gotten rusty.
Wayne could only bear to watch so much before heading upriver and quickly nymphing up a nice fish.
The hatch was very sparse and ended by 3:15, which made the late start (courtesy of me) somewhat disastrous. Oops.
Wayne Eng’s prayers are answered.
Wallowing in self pity? Not me.
I’m putting the whole episode behind me; on Monday, my Registered Maine Guide brother-in-law (the Grand Lake Canoe builder) and I are fishing the Rogue with Dave Roberts.
It’s his first taste of Western fishing from a drift boat, so I warned Roberts not to forget to put in the drain plugs this time.
As always, more as it happens. See you on the Rogue, Tom Chandler.
Technorati Tags: fly fishing, upper sac, upper sacramento river, wayne eng, trout
rriver | Feb 4, 2007 | Reply
I hope you do better tomorrow than I did today on the Rogue. I didn’t touch a fish, though I really tried.
Nice weather, but nothing was hatching and nothing worked, so I couldn’t figure out what to do. At times I would watch the river to try and get a clue, nada.
I have about six spots that should hold fish. zip. There were sporatic hatches of a grayish brown mayfly, and some tan midges, but extremely light.
No small birds got interested and the Heron’s never showed. The bigger birds (eagles and ospreys) would only circle once and never go lower or dive.
With another warm afternoon, maybe things will improve.
- rriver
Tom Chandler | Feb 5, 2007 | Reply
Report coming tomorrow, but it was OK. Light BWO hatch, a few rising fish. I landed a pair, Chris got a couple too.
Unfortunately - despite a lot of nice drifts - no steelhead.
Still, fish on a dry fly. Life is good again.
Clay | Feb 7, 2007 | Reply
Tom…you were nymph fishing with your bamboo? After all the comments I have read, this floors me. How could a man of your stature lower himself to fish subsurface? Now wetflies I can see but NYMPHS! You have some splainin’ to do.
Tom Chandler | Feb 7, 2007 | Reply
Nope. We were looking for winter steelies, so were fishing 8wt plastic rods.
No reason to waste good bamboo on that job.