Beating the Heat: An Afternoon Fly Fishing the Upper Sacramento

Word was the Upper Sacramento River’s fishing kinda slow — especially in the middle of the day. Naturally, that’s when I went fly fishing, though with expectations tamped down to dog-day levels.

The Upper Sacramento is still riddled with pretty — even when the fishing’s slow.

Did I say my expectations were low? That’s a misstatement. What’s true is that I didn’t expect to catch many fish. I fully expected to have a great time, and in that sense, the trip was 100% successful.

Wet wading in hot weather (it’s 90+ degrees in Mt. Shasta) is little like cheating the laws of thermodynamics (though it’s possible to regret the choice when the water grows more than thigh deep).

The air temperatures right at river level are several degrees cooler than the rest of the canyon, so even when the fishing’s slow, you’re experiencing what amounts carbon-neutral, guilt-free air conditioning compliments of Mother Nature.

Freebies. You gotta love freebies.

It’s many degrees cooler at river level. Is there a better place to be?

I was fishing an 8′3″ 5wt George Maurer bamboo fly rod that hasn’t yet gotten the workout it deserved. I started throwing a small, dirty tan hopper that worked about as well as hoppers usually seem to work on this river, which isn’t great.

One fish rose to intercept it and swung off at the last second, so after a fishless 45 minutes, I tied a small zebra midge off the hopper. Why a zebra midge?

A small forest of midge larvae covered many rocks. These are size 20s.

It’s the time of year where you’ll find river rocks covered with tiny black larvae, and it’s doubtful the trout can ignore such a bounty.

In short order, a pair of small fish ate the midge, but after 1.5 hours of fishing a big dry, I said the hell with it and tied on a #14 Beetle Bug — the Trout Underground’s Official Easy-to-Tie Attractor Dry Fly.

The smaller dry zips through the air cleanly and my loops immediately tighten up. It completely changes my impression of the rod, and approximately every half hour a small trout jumps on the Beetle Bug.

I thought the trout would be right in the oxygen — tucked up tight in the white water — but most of my bites come in medium-speed riffles, and twice I spooked decent-sized trout in the slow, shallow water right along the shore.

Guess I’ve got a ways to go for that Predator Merit Badge.

After 3.5 hours of middle-of-the-day heat, I’m back near the truck and decide to save a little energy for tomorrow, where the L&T Nancy and I are planning to drag my float tube into an alpine lake, escaping the heat and looking for brookies.

Choo-choo. Trains are cool, especially when they keep the tanker cars out of the river.

Right now it’s clearly late summer (we’ve got the temperatures to prove it), though rumor has it the lower river is fishing OK early in the morning, but slowing dramatically by midday.

Interestingly, the October Caddis nymphs are largely gone — crawled under rocks to pupate — and I’m guessing the October Caddis will appear ahead of schedule this year. Then again, pretty much everything’s appearing ahead of schedule this year.

Naturally, more as it happens. See you in the backcountry, Tom Chandler.

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