Fly Fishing,    Fishing Report,    Upper Sacramento

The X-Files Brookies. Why are they on the Upper Sac?

By Tom Chandler 8/16/2006

The parade of brook trout continues on the Upper Sacramento; after Chris Raine and I each caught one, last night Dave Roberts stepped up to the plate with his own dry-fly brookie.

Another Brook Trout on the Upper Sac??
"Vampire Alien Brookies Invade the Upper Sac!" I'm optioning the movie rights...

Their origin isn't really that mysterious - they likely washed over (or through) Lake Siskiyou dam during last winter's high flows, and now live in a river that isn't exactly their ancestral home, but is still recognizably a trout river.

Catching one on the Upper Sac is an odd, odd moment, and sharing it with a longtime friend (who was also my best man) turned a cool moment into a special one.

Dave and I were buddies even before I moved to the Upper Sac, and we've stayed great friends. We both fish bamboo, and while we nymph when forced to, we typically will jump through hoops to make it work with dry flies. The textbook definition of fishing buddies.

2/3 of a Grand Slam?
Unfortunately, Dave didn't get a brown to match his brookie and rainbow, so the Upper Sac Grand Slam escaped him. I landed a handful, and my last fish of the evening was a 17" brown (I'm pretty sure I caught this one last week). It was a nice cap to the evening, which was good, but not as wildly successful as recent trips.

I managed to hook and then lose five good fish in succession before landing the brown (and deciding to leave on a high note), so the big brown helped move the experience from a "frustrating" one to a "frustrating but ultimately successful" one. Subtle, but significant...

Upper Sacramento water keeps rolling
I know. Another boring Upper Sac picture - one without nude women or huge fish. What am I thinking?

I fished Raine's 8'3" Spring Creek Special with the appropriate 4wt line, and spent most of the evening throwing variations on a BWO. All the recent fishing has largely emptied my fly box, and I resorted to a #18 PED parachute with strong olive overtones.

It delivered bites (including the five I farmed and the 17" brown), but I'd better get back to the fly tying bench soon. Or hope all the local trout go colorblind. See you at the HMH vise, Tom Chandler.
AuthorPicture

Tom Chandler

As the author of the decade leading fly fishing blog Trout Underground, Tom believes that fishing is not about measuring the experience but instead of about having fun. As a staunch environmentalist, he brings to the Yobi Community thought leadership on environmental and access issues facing us today.

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Just a quick note, Brian is the first bioliogist I have learned to trust. He doesn't just put out info his boss tells him to, like the ones we have here in Oregon. David
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Those browns you caught at Lake Siskiyou were probably the last of the Mohicans as it's been about 3 years since the lake was last stocked with browns. Where are the little browns? Is there ample spawning gravel in the area where the adult browns are? If not, then they are spawning elsewhere in the river (or maybe even in one or more of the tribs downstream) which would explain the lack of smaller ... more browns. As for answers. They can be provided for a small consulting fee. This fee won't cost you a dime. All it entails is having Chris Raine build me a hollow built Upper Sac Special Cane Rod at no charge to me. I think that is a VERY reasonable consulting fee ;-) Brian
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Brian; Interesting. Didn't realize they stopped stocking Lake Siskiyou with browns. Steve Bertrand I caught a couple 14”-15” browns there two winters ago. Sounds like they were the last of their kind. I admit to catching enough browns lately that I wondered if they were reproducing in the Upper Sac. But if they are, where are the little browns? Why hasn't anyone caught one? Hmmm... Does anyone ... more else here notice a pattern here? Unanswered questions? Suspicious gaps? Apparent lies from a “supposed” government fisheries official? Yup. I sense conspiracy. So Brian (if that is your real name), who are you working for? And what are you hiding? Genetic experiments gone horribly awry? An alien crash site? A secret homeland security installation? Answers. The Underground wants answers...
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I'm not too concerned either and I am a fisheries biologist :-) The reasons I'm not concerned are simply this. There are not a lot of brookies in the Upper River to begin with since these are trout that have washed over the dam so there are not enough of them to get a viable population established. This has probably been going on ever since DFG began stocking the lake after it filled when the dam ... more was completed in the late 60's. I'm not sure when brook trout were first stocked in the lake but they certainly have been stocking brook trout in there for a while. Put it this way. DFG stocks 5000-6000 brook trout in the lake every season so some are bound to get washed over the dam every year during periods of high flows/runoff. Brook trout do not do well in rivers that are in the rain-on-snow zone. Being that they are fall spawners and utilize smaller gravel sizes than the larger browns, their redds are more prone to getting blown out during periods of high flows in late fall. The fry don't emerge from the gravel until at least late Nov so odds are the redds will get nailed by high flows by that time. The browns are a bit more puzzling in terms of their presence in the upper river since they have not been stocked in the lake for several years at least, so I don't think these are fish that have washed over the dam. The consensus was that they were confined to the middle and lower portions of the river but it's possible that some have moved into the upper river. Brian
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I'm not too concerned yet (disclaimer: I'm not a fisheries specialist, but I play one on the Internet). Fueling this hope are the rainbows of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, which seem to out-compete their native brookies on water that's a lot like the Upper Sac. Browns have lived in this river for a long time, but I think they've been losing ground on the Upper Sac instead of gaining it ... more (if the old stories are to be believed). I have caught a lot of browns lately, but absolutely no small ones. I tend to believe what we're seeing (on the upper river) are fish that have washed over the dam, not the first signs of burgeoning populations of alien trout...
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are you concerned about the brookies on the sac? i know they've taken over some streams in oregon and back east. my understanding is that, being a char, they are more aggressive and will consume fry of other species. they supposedly propagate rather quickly as well. just some thoughts.
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