Posts tagged: lower sacramento river

The Underground’s 2010 Season Opener Preview Post (or, We Prevaricate and Lie)

April 22, 2010, by 12 comments

The 2010 general trout season opener is fast approaching, and while I’m the first to admit it doesn’t have the cachet it used to (more and more of California’s trout waters are open to C&R fly fishing year-round), it’s still a point in time that demands a little recognition.

This year – due to an above-normal snowpack in California’s mountains and rainy/snowy spring weather, a lot of rivers will likely be high.

An Unreal Upper Sacramento River

You Are Now Free To Move About Our Rivers

(Note I said “high” and not “unfishably high.” The last time I pronounced the Upper Sac “blown out and unfishable,” someone wrote to say they’d had their best day ever on the river.)

What follows is a loose assemblage of rumors, half-truths, guide promotion and outright lies.

At no time should any of my readers actually believe anything they read in this forecast (I’m a fly fisherman after all), nor change their carefully laid plans based on this information.

Void where prohibited by law.

The Upper Sacramento

It’s high. And with all the low-level snow still piled up in the hills, it’s likely going to stay high.

As of this writing, the Upper Sacramento is running around 3000 cfs at the Delta station (the bottom of the river), which means you’ll find fishable spots, but the midsummer program – wandering up and down the riverbank fishing every likely spot – is a non starter.

That said, local guide Craig Nielsen has reported some monster fish hookups, though I’d suggest some local knowledge of the best high-water holes is needed before you’re going to get your net slimy. Read more →

Massive Salmon Found (Dead) in Lower Sacramento’s Battle Creek

November 6, 2008, by 3 comments

The collapse of the West Coast’s salmon fisheries isn’t exactly a secret, though every once in a while, something pops up to remind you of what’s been lost (and what could exist again if the fishery was better protected). In a tributary of the Lower Sacramento River, biologists found a dead salmon that probably weighed 90 pounds:


(California Dept of Fish & Game photo)

Measuring in at 51 inches – 4 1/4 feet – long, the male salmon was likely five to six years old, Killam said. Scientists used the salmon’s girth and length to come up with their estimate of 85 pounds – and that’s dead. The salmon probably weighed about 90 pounds alive when it started its swim from the Pacific Ocean back to Battle Creek.

Of course, one of the reasons this huge fish was able to contribute its monster genetics to Battle Creek was due to the commercial fishing restrictions and closures of the past two years:

Federal and state officials called off a commercial salmon fishery this year off the state’s coast and are allowing nothing but a short sport season in the Sacramento River because of the low runs.

“A fish that big would have been caught in the fishery,” Smith said.

Sadly, the fish is simply a remnant of the kind of fish that once swam in the Upper Sacramento on a regular basis, and with habitat and environmental issues rearing up – and commercial overfishing more the norm than the exception in prior decades – we’re unlikely to see its kind anytime soon:

Although monstrous, the salmon found on Battle Creek is part of a meager salmon run on the stream that feeds Coleman National Fish Hatchery. This year’s fall-run has been about 13,000 fish, said Scott Hamelberg, the hatchery’s manager.

Average runs at the hatchery have been between 20,000 and 30,000 fish.

See you on the River, Tom Chandler.

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Man Drowns on Lower Sacramento After Drift Boat Collides with Anderson Bridge

April 22, 2008, by No comments yet

This sobering bit of news from the Redding Record-Searchlight:

A San Jose man died after he and two companions were thrown from their drift boat and into the Sacramento River after they hit the North Street Bridge in Anderson Monday afternoon.

Construction workers building the new North Street Bridge spotted the three men and were able to pull one of them from the water. Two others were swept down river by the strong current, one clinging to the overturned boat, said sheriff’s Lt. Jerry Shearman.

Daniel Scott McMillan of San Jose was declared dead, and while the story’s not clear as to the cause, it seems a contributing factor might have been the construction at the bridge:

Construction on the new North Street Bridge is well under way. Two 30-foot openings allow boaters to pass between the pilings that will support the new six span bridge, Pat Minturn, Public Works Director, said in November.

This certainly casts the closure of the Lower Sacramento River at the Cypress Street Bridge (also undergoing construction) in an interesting light.

Partial Closure of Lower Sacramento River at Cypress Bridge Recommended

March 6, 2008, by No comments yet

The ongoing furball in Redding about the Cypress Avenue Bridge repair project — which wasn’t designed with boat passage in mind and threatened to close the Lower Sacramento River to boat traffic — has taken on a new dimension as a city-council appointed panel has recommended partial closure of the river at higher flows:

Redding would close the Sacramento River through the Cypress Avenue Bridge construction trestle to all boating traffic when flows go above 10,000 cubic feet per second — or generally, during summer — should the city follow recommendations from an appointed committee.

Motorboats, kayaks, rowboats, drift boats and motorized rafts could follow the river beneath the bridge whenever flows are lower under the recommendations that were hashed out at a meeting Wednesday and are still in draft form.

I don’t see a clear reference to personal pontoon boats — the kind you often see floating the Lower Sacramento River — and the next paragraph doesn’t really make it any clearer:

The city would close the bridge passage to people in canoes, sailboats, inner tubes, nonmotorized rafts, air mattresses, sailboards and pool toys until construction is complete in late 2010, under the proposed recommendations.

Does a pontoon boat qualify as a drift boat or a non-motorized raft? And why would you close the river to a guide who uses a raft instead of a drift boat? Finally, does the Redding City Council actually have the authority to close the Sacramento River? I’ll bet not.

Closing the Lower Sacramento River at the Cypress would effective cut the most common daylong float in half, and I suspect we’ll see river guides getting a bit more creative come summer.

I put in a call to the Redding Fly Shop’s Michael Caranci, who serves on the citizen committee making the recommendation, and hope to get a clarification soon.

UPDATE: I spoke to Duane at the Redding Fly Shop, who says it’s all up in the air, but that the committee’s intent was to allows passage (below summer flows) to any craft with oars. That includes whitewater rafts, pontoon boats and kayaks (though they use paddles). Hopefully, the language will be made more specific before the Redding City Council votes on it.

UPDATE #2: A Web site for Personal Injury lawyers (huh?) weighs in on bridge closure. 

See you on the river (dodging bridge piers), Tom Chandler.

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Lower Sacramento River at Cypress Bridge Remains Open… For Now

February 11, 2008, by No comments yet

Last week the Redding City Council was heading towards closing the Lower Sacramento River to boats around their wholly mis-managed Cypress Street bridge repair project.

This week, they backed off. From the Redding Record Searchlight:

The Redding City Council backed off from closing the Sacramento River to boaters at the Cypress Avenue Bridge after a half-dozen guides urged officials to consider alternatives that would not cripple the city’s robust fishing industry.

The project engineers sank several temporary piers into the river, creating many small channels under the bridge which are at an angle to the river’s current, so getting through the slots is not as simple as lining up the boats and shipping the oars.

According to local guide Craig Nielsen — who floats the river on a regular basis — the problem isn’t too severe at low flows, but at the higher flows of summer, it’s going to get damned dangerous, especially for less-skilled boaters.

Rather than essentially cutting the normal float trip in half until 2010, the city council voted to establish a committee to look at the options.

That’s probably a prudent course given the economic hardship lawsuits likely to flow from a closure, and the not-yet-confronted questions about the city’s right to close navigable river.

It’s always amusing to see government officials running for cover when the trouble starts, including this gem from Redding’s engineering director, who probably realized that this economy-killing, lawsuit-generating furball was going to land on his desk.

Figuring that distracting us with shadow puppets wouldn’t work, Barru Tippin fired up the "I am the great and powerful Oz" routine:

Several speakers said a design flaw in the trestle created the danger. But Barry Tippin, the city’s transportation and engineering director, defended the structure, noting it was designed by an internationally recognized engineering firm and built to accepted state standards.

Ah yes. An "internationally recognized" firm created this apparently "internationally sized screwup."

See you breathing water under the Cypress Street Bridge, Tom Chandler

Lower Sacramento River Closed to Boat Traffic in Redding? Can We Get An "Ouch" From the Guides?

February 7, 2008, by 3 comments

You know the “standard” drift boat trip on the Lower Sac — where you put in at the Posse Grounds and take out way, way downriver?

That float’s days may be numbered:

After a scathing report by a state boating safety consultant, the Redding City Council will decide Tuesday whether to close the Sacramento River to boat traffic below the Cypress Avenue Bridge for two years.

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If the council approves the emergency ordinance, all boats would be banned from the river 100 yards upstream from the bridge and 50 yards below. The river would be closed until Dec. 24, 2010.

If the river is closed, it could put a damper on what city tourism officials estimate to be at least a $1 million recreational fishing industry.

I first mentioned this some time ago — now it appears the Redding folks are serious about closing the Lower Sac on both sides of the Cypress Street Bridge.

(And yes — that incredibly under-the-mark $1 million dollar figure for the Redding recreational fishing industry has resurfaced again.)

Comments, Undergrounders? Are the guides about to take it in the shorts, or are there enough ramps and float available to keep it interesting?

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