With the Upper Sacramento River at perfectly fishable levels, you’d think I’d be itching to drop a fly on my favorite dry fly water.
Yet for some reason — even after ten days in Tennessee and a day on the Upper McCloud — I can’t kick the small stream habit.
OK. One more day on thin water. I can do that.
The stream is small, but looms big.
I bundled up my gear, turned the key in the ignition, and headed for one of the small streams that empties into Lake Siskiyou.
I don’t want to get too cute about the location; these little streams aren’t up to a lot of pressure. Then again, they don’t receive much.
The trout are tiny, so the guides rarely show them to the sports, and comparing the effort against the result leaves most headed for bigger water and bigger fish.
Plus, these don’t fish particularly well in summer or fall; when they’re fishing well, the spring hatches are in full swing on other waters.
Little Fish. Big Fun.
I fished Chris Raine’s 7.5′ 4wt Hollowbuilt, and decided (again) that small streams and bamboo go together like ice cream and love handles.
Chris Raine’s Hollowbuilt 7.5′ 4wt — perfect for small streams.
The extra mass of the rod means it loads better when you’re casting only leader, and alongside the neon-colored little trout, they shine.
Not just any rod will do; you want a nice light-action fly rod with a soft tip (to make lots of pinpoint, leader-only casts), but a longer rod offers better highsticking opportunities.
The best fly? It hardly mattered. I found a few scattered shucks from a #14 yellow stonefly, but oddly, a yellow fly was the least effective.
Best was a Hare’s Ear parachute, though that could just be because I fished it during the best part of the day.
#14 Yellow Stonefly husks were apparent, though not many.
The fish were predictably small — until a 13″ rainbow tipped up on my fly. Wild? It’s hard to imagine.
His fins were in great shape and his color was beautiful. Best I can figure? He was a holdover from last year’s herd of stockers.
I can’t imagine a fish of that size surviving the low, warm waters of fall, but there he was.
I wonder what the natives think about the stockers. They struggle in a small, sterile stream to grow past the six inch mark, and one day a bucket flashes overhead and a couple of big, stupid, hand-fed trout suddenly appear and hog the best feed lanes.
Do trout know anger? Do they hate hatcheries?
The Underground waits for answers. See you on the small stream, Tom Chandler.
[tags]fly fishing, fishing, small stream, bamboo fly rod, upper sacramento, trout[/tags]
{ 9 comments… read them below or add one }
I love small streams (typically in the High Sierras). As for the wild fish and hating their hatchery-born brethren, I’d like to think that they don’t decend in to anger. Rather, they live a proud life (just look at their proud colors), satisfied knowing that most bigger but unschooled hatchery fish won’t last the winter.
This is why the pellet-head trout have not displaced the native bows on the Upper Sac. The attrition rate among hatchery fish is so high that the vast majority of them do not survive the winter. This is magnified on a freestone river system like the Upper Sac since the watershed lies within that rain-on-snow zone so it is always prone to flooding during the winter months.
Tom…there are only three streams that empty into siskiyou…I think that in itself is a little too much info if you were going to hide the location…small streams can be a ton of fun though! I’m hoping that the little sur is open again this summer - taking a backpacking trip into the ventanna wilderness. It has been closed to fishing for about five years because there was a seasonal dam put up during the summer for the boy scouts, and was impeding steel head runs. They’ve just recently put in an outstanding fish ladder though, so hopefully it will be reopened soon. The cool thing about that stream though is that you’re always fishing for these easy little guys - they fight well though - but there’s a plunge pool about a few miles upstream and sometimes there’s some HUGE steel head holed up in there. They were always too smart for me to catch though…
Unfortunately it’s left to me to set the record straight..
Most of you are unaware of the internecine warfare that has been rampant in California streams during the last century.
Browns against Rainbows, Brookies against all comers, Goldens allying with char, the destruction has been prolonged and bloody.
As it stands now, the Rainbows have gained the upper hand in most of our watersheds; Dolly Varden’s succumbed early, and a few outposts of Golden’s remain at the upper elevations.
The federal goverment has been slow to act, but in the last decade has inserted many divisions of pellet fed peacekeeping forces into this volatile mixture.
Progress is slow, but many spawning grounds have been reclaimed, and the scars of IED’s are slowing vanishing from the more productive lies.
As I pass the DFG truck, with its snakelike appendage disgorging yet another battalion of shock troops, I snap to attention and salute…as I know that Mr Churchill would have said, ..”never have so many, spent so much, for so few.”
Thanks for the laugh kbarton10!
Stay the course, kbarton. Stay the course.
Small streams rule…there’s one in particular in Tennessee that has become my new favorite place on earth - and the best part is, hardly anyone fishes it! I think it reminds me of my wasted youth, when I crawled through blackberry briar patches, dodged cottonmouths, and slogged through boot-sucking mud to get to that “next spot just around the bend”, where you just knew that world-record bass hung out.
Here in So. Cal. small streams that get warm are one of our only options especially for non-planters. I say that versus “wild” ’cause the wilds are sometimes the progeny of planters or cross-bred however there are some native elements still persisting. Although bows dominate for various reasons, in some places it’s surprising how many browns are around. Also, although no one wants to think about it, I have stumbled upon fish thriving in downright HOT water. May I respectfully offer this thought: Regarding “hotspotting”, C4C Rain’s closing mention of the Ventana locale, for a web-freak like me, is just shy of a GPS coordinate. Not to mention I have heard the same from others re: said locale. My 2cents It’s a tough time to keep secrets.
TL,
B.
Web-based mapping certainly has changed the average fly fisher’s ability to find out-of-the-way spots, but it hasn’t done much for the genetics of those same people — most of whom won’t walk far to catch small fish when bigger fish are near the parking lot.
I didn’t worry overmuch about posting my small stream report; one visit spent hustling over boulders and up steep banks — to catch tiny fish — and the vast majority of fly fishers aren’t ever coming back.