The Upper Sacramento -- which should be damned well unfishable right now -- has fallen below 1800 cfs, and the McCloud at Ah-Di-Nah is below 500 cfs.

Neither is exactly ideal for wading, but both are wholly fishable flows (if you don't mind walking a bit).

They'll probably remain that way through the weekend, and if you're thinking of heading north for a little cannonball-split-shot combat fly fishing, that's the good news -- especially if you stumble onto one of the few spots with trout rising to March Browns.

The bad news?

With our springtime weather apparently still on a train north from Cancun (the weather forecast suggests a 70+ degree day isn't even on the horizon), you may not see those Ideal-For-Fly-Fishing-Normally-Late-Spring Flows until the middle of July (if then).

See, the real runoff event hasn't yet begun, and in fact, we've added to the snowpack the last couple days.

I could write about the horrific effects that three days of mid-May snow have on a writer's delicate psyche (and advocate heavily for some kind of federal creative disaster relief), but in a rare display of courage, I'm going to stop sniffling and hope the Underground's California readers are taking advantage of this rare pre-runoff bonanza.

We'll pay for it later in the form of some serious runoff, and when it happens, I sincerely doubt that the word "courageous" will be used to describe those posts.

See you hiding the tears on the river, Tom Chandler.

UPDATE: You can find the snowpack/waterpack figures here, which will tell you the high snowpack and cold spring mean the Northern Sierras are at... 253% of normal for this time of the year.