The reports about the Upper Sacramento have been uniform; it’s tough sledding right now, even if you stumble across a decent hatch.

Of course, something’s always happening somewhere — a lesson I learned in my bass fishing days, where boat after boat would return to the dock with empty livewells, but somebody always hammered the fish.

With that reality in mind, Steve Bertrand and I ran way downriver, looking for active fish, rising fish, or just hungry, stupid fish.

Yes, I’m crushing Bertrand’s head. Crushing it.

And yes, it’s never a good sign when I lead a fishing report with a "just screwing around" photo — one where I’m crushing Steve Bertrand’s skull with my all-powerful fingers.

That photo suggests — despite covering a lot of river, peering into a lot of water, casting to a lot of promising runs, and burning too much $4/gallon gas — pictures were about all we had to show for our efforts.

 
At least somebody was getting it done.

The river looks great; flows are plenty fishable, water clarity is good, and you can’t look at the better runs without knowing they’re loaded with fish.

Without delving into the gory details, I’ll simply say that I fished a dry and took pictures, while Steven rapidly progressed from dry fly to dry and dropper to serious nymphing rig — with exactly the same results.

Looking, but not finding.

We both knew of places where we probably could catch trout (because Steven had just recently), but damnit — we wanted the motherlode. We wanted to find the fish nobody else had.

Today, Wayne and Steve are off to the Pit River while I stayed behind to <cough> work, and file this all-encompassing fishing report.

Sorta Gear Porn

Raine’s Upper Sac Special (the first [and still solid-built] model) and Velocity Radius

While I’m pretty set on the gear front, I recently scored a heavily discounted Velocity Radius reel at the Sierra Trading Post, and fished it on my Raine Upper Sac Special, which provided a pleasingly smooth, balanced package.

In other words, at least it was warm, and green and sunny, and the casting was good.

See you on the river, Tom Chandler.