Your home waters are your home waters, and if you lack a possessive sensibility surrounding them – even those stretches you haven’t seen in years – then you’re a better man than I.

Of course, the Upper Sacramento River is my home water, and yet – because of work and trips – I haven’t seen the thing in close to two months.

An Upper Sacramento River rainbow trout
One cast, one fish. To preserve my perfect average, I should have stopped there.

Naturally, you don’t whine about fly fishing places like Montana and Maine, but because you know your home waters well, you’re keenly aware you largely missed the Pink Alberts, early summer’s “secret” big spinner falls, and that your annual trip to a Big Fish Stretch You Don’t Talk About Online is way overdue.

Time for all that later. Tuesday evening, I couldn’t take it any longer, and headed to a nearby stretch – something I’ve fished as much as anything on the river.

The Great Gear Search

While my fly fishing gear is scattered around the floor – bits of Montana and Maine still attached – I got to the river with pretty much everything (except hemostats, which I needed, and the BWO/midge box, which I didn’t). I did remember my roll cast – the most underrated, underused, can’t-live-without-it cast on the Upper Sacramento.

Feeling contemplative, I brought Raine’s hollowbuilt 8.5′ 5/6wt quad.

It’s a rollcasting machine, and while I hesitate to mention it – fearing Raine will remember he loaned it to me and want it back – I will say it kicked butt on water where most seem tempted to haul out their 3wts.

The Hollowbuilt Quad bamboo fly rod: a roll casting machine
Raine’s hollowbuilt quad and a reel I use simply because I like the way it looks.

On the Upper Sac, indiscriminate use of light-line fly rods isn’t always rewarded, and there are days when I wonder why a reasonably tapered 6wt – the “normal” trout rod just a couple decades ago – isn’t still the standard.

But then, it’s entirely possible that’s just me retro-grouching; I’ll leave that to a later post.

Steve Bertrand met me in the turnout, which was good since I’d brought a big ziplock bag of surplus potato salad from the Shasta Summit Century (a guide care package).

Being in a basically wiped-out mood, I was happy to watch for a while, though if I didn’t crow a teensy bit about connecting with a 12″-13″ rainbow on my first cast, I’d probably be dead.

I caught a handful more during what looked like a sparse, mixed hatch that could have included PEDs, caddis, and midges.

Given my preference for presentation over bugs, I caught all my trout on a #16 Quigley Cripple, and after catching a couple on a small caddis, Bertrand eventually tied on a Quigley Cripple that had been mauled so badly in a prior use that I shortened the name to “Quig” to reflect the loss of materials.

Upper Sacramento Brown Trout
Lots of color, little trout: Bertrand’s brown tout.

He quickly used it to connect with a small brown trout, which probabably came from the lake through Box Canyon dam, though it always fires my imagination: is there any significant brown trout reproduction on the Upper Sacramento?

I’m checking it out, and will let you know.

Fish question aside, it was the kind of laid-back evening you enjoy on your home waters when you don’t have anything to prove, or a body count to meet, or a deadline for going home.

You’re just there, waiting for something to happen, realizing that sitting quietly and watching the river stream by means something is happening, though it might fall under the heading of “internal dialog” instead of “big hatch of bugs and large trout.”

There is more local fly fishing headed the Undergrounder’s way, though where that fly fishing will happen is anybody’s guess.

I’m in a strange mood surrounding fly fishing; getting someplace remote feels more important than the fishing itself, which suggests another hike into the mountains.

See you somewhere, Tom Chandler.

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