Coming to an Upper Sac Near You: Fly Fishing the Edge of Fall

Steve Bertrand, the river, and the very beginnings of Fall.

It’s still hot in the Upper Sacramento River canyon, but the signs of a fast-approaching fall are everywhere. The October Caddis disappeared a month ago (they’re pupating under the big rocks), the elephant ears are turning color, and the air smells sharper and colder.

The light changes too — slanting from lower in the sky — and the river feels like it’s in a holding pattern, waiting for Fall’s hatches to begin.

Well, maybe it’s not the river that feels that way. Maybe it’s the fly fishermen.

Stingy River

By most accounts, the river’s been stingy with both its bugs and its fish, so when Steve Bertrand and I went fishing, we headed downcanyon, hoping to cash in on a rumored, right-at-dark, ten-minute caddis hatch.

Waiting for us was some great-looking water, but no bugs and zero rising fish. Not exactly heaven on earth, but getting out and casting dry flies at likely looking water isn’t exactly a waste of an evening.

Bertrand and I fanned out on the river. He was test-fishing the prototype Orvis Helios of recent rod test fame, and headed up the far bank (he liked the rod, and said it “felt like a 3wt in my hand”). Turned out he picked the right side; I went up the near bank, and spent as much time fighting willows as I did fishing.

Ok. I’m pretty, but I’m not that smart.

 
Bertrand fishing the easy side of the river. Someday I’ll learn…

The Obligatory Big Fish Story

Still, even when you’re not catching fish, flicking a dry at two-inch foam line is an absorbing task; the world tends to recede, and when a fish actually does eat the bug, it can be a little jarring.

The first fish was perhaps ten inches; on for a few seconds, he spit the fly back and presumably went back to his rock to sulk.

A missed fish later, and I latched onto something kinda solid. Real solid.

It turned out to be a 17″ rainbow — a fish with a big, fat beer belly on him, though I suspect he’d been eating cased caddis as opposed to drinking beer (show of hands — how would you prefer to grow your beer belly?).

I should have known I’d hook a good fish this trip; I’d left my net at home, and as everyone knows, nothing guarantees a big fish better than the lack of a net.

So I hand-landed him, held him up against the rod, watched his tail slide well past the 16″ trim wrap on my 8.5′ Steffen glass rod, and let him go (too dark for pictures, sorry).

I could have stopped right there — I never got another take — but Steve enjoyed a few charged moments, courtesy a fish about the same size as mine.

I was fighting my way back downstream through the willows when I heard that happy, happy noise CFO reels make when they’re attached to something moving very fast.

Sadly, his big fish neatly sawed the tippet on a sharp-edged rock (some trout know how to do this kind of thing).

Bye, big fish. Bye.

More Fall to Come

Fall is my one of my favorite times on the Upper Sacramento (OK, they’re almost all my favorite times, but you get the drift) — especially now that the season doesn’t end when the BWO hatches are gearing up.

There’s a lot of fly fishing to be done between now and then, including a few sorties into the backcountry, where fall comes early and the fish act like they know it.

See you on the water, Tom Chandler.

Elephant Ears are turning

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