Monday night found me hobbling down the RR the tracks on an upper stretch of the Upper Sac, hoping the decline in flows from 3,000 cfs to 2,000 cfs had opened up a lot of water. Based on what I saw, I'm guessing a fair amount of that 1,000 cfs difference is due to falling tribs farther downriver (flows measured at the bottom of the river). It was lower, but it was a long ways from heaven.
Most of the time I was fishing from the trees, and in those situations, you can either whine or you can channel someone like Ian Rutter, who absolutely thrives when surrounded by fly-grabbing limbs. Lacking extensive paranormal powers, I mostly whined.
A handful of Golden Stones buzzed their way upriver, so I threw a stone dry (to no avail), and then (in order of increasing desperation) a Green Drake, and Adams, and a Hares Ear nymph. Slow water or fast, they just didn't seem to want to eat a dry. I nymphed up a couple from a reliable high-water seam, and then headed for a short tailout where I caught three on a #14 Pale yellow/olive dry. Best moment of the evening was the drive home:
Mt. Shasta's peak is obscured while the Lemurians dock their spaceship. Or so I'm told.
Working fish? None. Hatching bugs? Hardly any better, and this while Steve Bertrand and Wayne Eng were enjoying better hatches and rising fish miles downriver. Sunday night, Steve cashed in on a light Green Drake hatch midriver, but that's hardly surprising – he spends more time chasing that particular hatch than anyone.
I looked up last year's reports, and early June found me hitting big fish on a very good Green Drake hatch. This year? Not so much. Last year's fishing was so good for me that I kept kidding my friends that it was the year I'd spent all those other years paying dues for. Now I'm realizing I was fishing on credit last year, and that bill started coming due last Fall, and with interest...
Last night it rained, and sure enough, the river flows had spiked this morning. Wanna fish the Upper Sac? It's doable, and getting more doable by the day. It's not easy, but judging by the reports I'm hearing, it's easier the farther downriver you go.
For the geargeeks among the readership, I fished my Diamondglass 8.5' 4wt, which is a little light if you're going to throw Golden Stone dries all night, but it's a sweet, sweet rod, and I wanted to fish it. Case closed. Big dries on light lines fish a lot better with a leader suited to the task, and someday I'm going to twist Sully's arm and get him to post some of his leader formulas – including the 16.5 foot leader that always (and that's every time) turns over. Sully knows leaders like Steven Hawking knows gravity, so stay tuned. See you behind a pile of snipped monofilament, Tom Chandler