Upper Sac Report

[Jeff F]

Eric O. and I fished mid-river on Saturday. Fished a great long stretch of river you have to work at to access. Got one 13"'er right off the bat. Thought it was gonna be a great day.......

However, I'm starting to think that the UprSac is a very hatch-driven river. There were no hatches to speak of. No caddis, no sallies, no mayflies, no goldens, you get the picture. And the fishing was extremely slow all day. We expected a mid-day slow down, as it was sweltering in the canyon. But even in the most picture perfect deep runs, in the morning, where you know there are fish, they just weren't biting. No takers in the whitewater either. Tried every fly in the box....

We did raise a few fish on stimi's, but nothing over 10", and very sporadic, nothing consistent. The river, as usual, was just beautiful, with perfect cold flows, but the fish were just not active at all.

We didn't hang around to wait for an evening hatch to materialize, thinking that it probably wouldn't happen by what we experienced all day. I've fished the USac many times, and always had some hatch coming off, and have caught plenty of nice fish. But Saturday was just plain dead. Nothing really for the fish to get excited about.

So......off to the Pit this coming weekend. Hatch or no hatch, those fish are always on the feed!

~Jeff

[Bill Kiene semi-retired]

I just called Bob Grace @ The Ted Fay Fly Shop in Dunsmuir, CA. He was too busy to talk (good thing) but told me the river was fishing "fair" this year. This is the time to go right now. In a few weeks I think it will start slowing. August/Sept are usually slow.
Then it usually picks up in Oct/Nov.

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I also just called old friend and top veteran guide Fred Gordon. He said it was fishing just OK. He said that several years of drought and then some extreme flooding this winter has effect the river negatively? Fred said there are not a lot of bugs hatching in the evening and not many big fishing coming up.



That said I think it would be worth going right now, especially if you enjoy the river and the area like we do.

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Fred's standard nymph rig for day time fishing is a 7 1/2' - 4x knotless tapered leader with a #14 Gordon Prince and then tied into the bend of he hook about 18" of 4x and add #14 or #16 Hares Ear or Pheasant tail nymph. Fred puts a split shot in between the two nymphs.

Fred's evening dry fly set up is the #14 or #16 Adams Paradun on a 9' 4x or 5x leader.

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[cdevine]

Thanks for the update. That is very honest report. I tend to do best up there evening from 5-dark. A few weeks ago I was up there but decided to fish the Mccloud instead. (thank god I did because it was silly good). I usually end up doing the wrong thing. This time I was correct. The Pit will make up for it. You will get into tons of fish.

I've noticed some of these free stones got such a scouring from high flows bugs and other aquatic life was most def impacted. Like bill said with drought last 4 years and huge winter I'm sure we are seeing some lingering negative impact. Like everything else it will come back.

I'm heading up that way again soon.

[Jeff F]

Thanks for the update. That is very honest report. I tend to do best up there evening from 5-dark. A few weeks ago I was up there but decided to fish the Mccloud instead. (thank god I did because it was silly good). I usually end up doing the wrong thing. This time I was correct. The Pit will make up for it. You will get into tons of fish.

I've noticed some of these free stones got such a scouring from high flows bugs and other aquatic life was most def impacted. Like bill said with drought last 4 years and huge winter I'm sure we are seeing some lingering negative impact. Like everything else it will come back.

I'm heading up that way again soon.

The bugs are there, but not hatching for some reason. The drought and high water had little effect on the bug population. I say this because everywhere you look on the river bed, just about every rock was covered in cased caddis. We also turned over a bunch of rocks and there were tons of mayflies and stoneflies. So, something else was going on.....or not.

[Frank Alessio]

Bill... I just got back from the Upper Sac...In 7 days of fishing I found the River to fish very different from the past...It was running 590 cfs very hard to wade... Should be better in a couple of weeks...I had a couple of really good evenings...One evening I hooked about 19 fish...I actually brought 9 to hand... Shook a few others off.. I have been Fly Fishing the Upper Sac for 63 years...I was born in Dunsmuir and I love that river...