October Caddis Playhouse on the Trout Underground

Few phrases truly make the hair on your neck stand up: “IRS audit” and “big bugs hatching” should be two.

Sure, the October Caddis hatch doesn’t always draw trout to the surface (it’s one of the Upper Sac’s more mysterious hatches), but when it does – and you’re there – you’re standing smack in the middle of a chance to catch big trout on big dries <hair standing up>.

The classic, pretty, colorful Upper Sacramento Rainbow Trout.

With Wally the Wonderdog in tow, I headed to a nearby stretch of the Upper Sacramento, Chris Raine’s 8.5′ 5/6wt hollowbuilt quad in hand.

The Wonderdog’s crazy and happy – a happy fishing partner plagued by a disturbing tendency to spook fish and eat the hooked trout. By contrast, Raine’s quad (when loaded with a 6wt) fishes nicely, and hardly ever eats anything.

And yes, you do need a rod with some backbone to handle the bigger fish that eat the October Caddis dry (so much for the gear portion of the report).

October Caddis shucks dotted the rocks. That’s good.

Fishing was slow at first, but later – just before dark, the carnage began. On many levels.

A lot of October Caddis were hatching. A lot of October Caddis were laying eggs. A few fish were eating them. And the Wonderdog was watching it all happen, and yes, chasing the October Caddis that came too close.

Yes, he actually is pointing at a working trout.

And yes, he was also chasing the fish I hooked, which made for a curious dance; I’d hook a trout, try to play it quietly, but when it was time to land them, I’d reef ‘em in hard, turn them upside down, slide the fly out, quickly measure them against the rod, and let the trout go – all while turning a shuffling circle to keep the Wonderdog at bay.

I’m sure I looked pretty stupid doing it, and not to put too fine a point on it, you don’t exactly “reef in” 16″ rainbow trout at will. I should probably work on this one.

The fishing wasn’t fast, but it was good. I landed four, the smallest of which ran 13 inches. The biggest went 16+ inches (that’s actually a 17, but I’m trying not to brag), and the second biggest was only a little smaller.

All ate a partially submerged October Caddis dry (yes, it’s supposed to be that way), and all looked pretty damned healthy.

Here’s today’s UFO photo; an October Caddis flutters while a hooked trout splashes*.

The long, quiet runs – perfect dry fly water – didn’t produce. Instead, I relied on the slots and current seams in a few of my favorite rock gardens.

It’s a tactic I learned a few years ago; aggressively drifting a big dry in these tighter, faster waters works even when you don’t see trout working the surface – often the case during the October Caddis hatch.

Note the size of the fish vs the size of the hand.

I’d love to bloviate endlessly about my clearly world-class October Caddis brain – ample fodder for a self-congratulatory article in a magazine – but my previous posts still hold.

The October Caddis hatch on this river is odd, and trout’s reaction to it is often inexplicable.

In fact, I’ve recieved more than a few emails from frustrated fly fishermen wondering what the deal is; one even pumped a trout’s stomach to find… nothing. No October Caddis, and this after a relatively strong hatch.

What can you say? There’s a reason the famous hatches – the ones that come off like clockwork on the famous rivers and pull all the big fish to the top – draw so much attention, but I can’t quite bring myself to characterize the on/off response of Upper Sacramento Trout to the October Caddis catch as some kind of flaw.

Wally the Wonderdog strands himself on a mid-river rock in an attempt to find more fish.

One of the benefits of living near a good trout stream is the chance to figure shit like this out, even if all you figure out is that you’re not going to figure it out, at least not anytime soon.

Meanwhile, the Caddis keep hatching, and sometimes, I catch the big trout that eat them, and even if I don’t, you’d have to be kind of an ass to hate on a walk along a river in fall.

See you on the Upper Sacramento River, Tom Chandler.

(*No caddis were harmed in the making of this fishing report. Except maybe a few.)

fly fishing, fishing, october caddis, upper sacramento river, bamboo fly rod

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