For a couple days, daytime temperatures exceeded the 75 degree mark, which means the grass at the Trout Underground/Man Cave World Headquarters was turning green and the flows on the river were spiking to 2,000 cfs.
Two families of deer were making regular appearances and eating the blooms off our flowers, and even though you know it’s going to happen, you wake up one morning with snow on the ground and you’re still surprised.
Wonderpaw tracks in the snow.
The late spring storm happens most years, and several years ago — when we still had a closed season on the Upper Sacramento — opening day found us stepping over rafts of snow on the ground halfway down the canyon, remnants of a storm that moved through two days prior to the opener.
Welcome, Undergrounders, to spring in the mountains.
It’s a Race: Flows v Temperatures
We’re at the bonus portion of the year; we need warmer temperatures to get the bugs and trout going, but every spike in air temperature means a spike in river flows.
Lake Siskiyou — the reservoir at the top of the Upper Sacramento’s Canyon section — is full, so warmer weather causes it to spill, which is when flows get completely out of hand.
Fly fishing becomes a semi-desperate enterprise where you try to exploit the seams between warming weather and a raging river, and more often than not, you fail.
Still, it’s been a dry spring and we’ve had a gradual thaw, and if it’s one thing we’ve learned about fly fishermen, it’s that hope never quite dies.
And if it does, there’s always Lake Siskiyou; every fly fisherman I know tucks away a little secret “backup” water where he can get to it quickly in case of emergency.
Mine’s the lake (the streams don’t open until late April). What’s yours (feel free to offer false and misleading names)?
See you at the flow gauge, Tom Chandler.
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{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Larry Swearingen 04.15.08 at 8:17 am
How about Mature Female Native American Creek ?
Larry Swearingen
Hoosier Daddy
Kevin 04.15.08 at 9:55 am
One attempted solution to deer eating my mother’s flowers I had as a youngster was a paintball gun. Unfortunately the deer weren’t too scared of it, but there was the benefit of knowing that the same ones were coming back over and over again.
Of course, in the suburban neighborhood I grew up in, the neighbor thought I was really shooting the deer…
Tom Chandler 04.15.08 at 11:53 am
Larry: Doesn’t open for a couple weeks
you poacher.Kevin: The L&T and I figure anything not behind the deer-proof garden fence is simply fair game. It’s easier than fighting mother nature.
Kentucky Jim 04.15.08 at 1:39 pm
I was on the upper Kern this past Saturday, with flows around 950 cfs. After about 3 1/2 hours and four pretty nice fish (and a few LDRs), I decided I’d had enough. Got out of the river to cramps in my calfs just under my knees for about 3 hours. I’m gonna havta wait awhile.