Missing It on the Upper Sacramento River
By Tom Chandler on Apr 3, 2008 in Fishing Report, Upper Sacramento
The reports about the Upper Sacramento have been uniform; it’s tough sledding right now, even if you stumble across a decent hatch.
Of course, something’s always happening somewhere — a lesson I learned in my bass fishing days, where boat after boat would return to the dock with empty livewells, but somebody always hammered the fish.
With that reality in mind, Steve Bertrand and I ran way downriver, looking for active fish, rising fish, or just hungry, stupid fish.
Yes, I’m crushing Bertrand’s head. Crushing it.
And yes, it’s never a good sign when I lead a fishing report with a "just screwing around" photo — one where I’m crushing Steve Bertrand’s skull with my all-powerful fingers.
That photo suggests — despite covering a lot of river, peering into a lot of water, casting to a lot of promising runs, and burning too much $4/gallon gas — pictures were about all we had to show for our efforts.
At least somebody was getting it done.
The river looks great; flows are plenty fishable, water clarity is good, and you can’t look at the better runs without knowing they’re loaded with fish.
Without delving into the gory details, I’ll simply say that I fished a dry and took pictures, while Steven rapidly progressed from dry fly to dry and dropper to serious nymphing rig — with exactly the same results.
Looking, but not finding.
We both knew of places where we probably could catch trout (because Steven had just recently), but damnit — we wanted the motherlode. We wanted to find the fish nobody else had.
Today, Wayne and Steve are off to the Pit River while I stayed behind to <cough> work, and file this all-encompassing fishing report.
Sorta Gear Porn
Raine’s Upper Sac Special (the first [and still solid-built] model) and Velocity Radius
While I’m pretty set on the gear front, I recently scored a heavily discounted Velocity Radius reel at the Sierra Trading Post, and fished it on my Raine Upper Sac Special, which provided a pleasingly smooth, balanced package.
In other words, at least it was warm, and green and sunny, and the casting was good.
See you on the river, Tom Chandler.










David Roberts | Apr 4, 2008 | Reply
Uh-huh, you pussed out of the Pitt. I knew when I talked to you, you weren’t to jazzed on it. Thats OK I was getting sore just thinking about it. TC Linda is going down to Redding all next week (she HAS to baby sit the Grandkids) so maybe after my two trips Monday and Tuesday I will get down to fish with you.
David
Larry Swearingen | Apr 4, 2008 | Reply
Hi Tom,
I guess wierd minds think alike.
I was doing the finger/thumb vise on a semi
in front of me coming south on US 31 just
two days ago. I hadn’t thought about
“Kids in the Hall” for years.
Larry Swearingen
Fort Wayne
Tom Chandler | Apr 4, 2008 | Reply
Bite me Roberts; I hiked up the South Fork road to check the snow (still a hell of a lot of it). Turns out the Pit would have been better.
Larry: Kids in the Hall — the show of twisted minds everywhere.