Sunny Days, Cool Nights: An Upper Sacramento River Report

When the weather’s nice (it’s perfect right now), I like to fire up the laptop and pretend I’m not working for the man, instead writing the next great fly fishing essay book.

It’s not true (today anyway), but spring days like this should provoke a little daydreaming, if only to prove to yourself winter didn’t kill off your imagination.

The River Report I mentioned in the headline? I’ve been back from Tennessee less than a week and the weather is absolutely beautiful.

Temperatures are perfect, hummingbirds throng the backyard, the landscape is carpeted with that bright, livid green of spring, and you know you’re living the days you dream about during the winter, when it’s dark, claustrophobic, and snow blankets the landscape.

Usually, this kind of weather goes hand-in-hand with a blown river — the snowmelt pushing the Upper Sacramento to its banks and limiting the fly fishing possibilities.

This year, that didn’t happen.

The snow’s mostly gone, the river never really got above 1,000 cfs (it’s below 700 and falling), and most of the backcountry is (reportedly) already open.

I’m hoping to fish some of the hatches I normally miss due to high water, though that means getting out instead of sitting around typing.

With that thought in mind, I’ll get back to work. But not before thanking all my readers, who keep coming back (in ever-increasing numbers), leaving comments, and just generally making the Trout Underground a great place to be when I’m not on the river.

Now get out and fish. Tell your boss your imagination said it was OK.

See you on the river, Tom Chandler.

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