Lower Sac Report

[matt johnson]

Today I got to do some trout fishing on the Lower Sacramento River with my good friend Jim Andras. Together with his wife Rachel, Jim runs a great family guide service specializing in Southern Oregon and Northern California waters: "Andras Outfitters". Check out their website: http://www.andrasoutfitters.com

Jim wanted to see how the late fall-run Chinook egg bite was developing on the Lower Sac, so he enlisted the help of myself and his friend/neighbor Dan, an enthusiastic new flyfisher. I 'm pretty sure Jim and the rainbows of the mighty Sacramento blew Dan's mind today! Once Jim got Dan going, Dan was on fire. It was cool to watch a guy have his best day trout fishing ever. Picking through Dans leftovers from the back of the boat, I managed my fair share of fish as well.

A few technical notes and then some pictures: There are not a bunch of late fall Chinook in the river, but the rainbows are definitely behind them. Most late fall spawn in the very upper part of the river. The flows are super low right now. Good wading opportunites abound! The overcast day's are providing incredible Baetis hatches. We caught almost all our fish on eggs.

Rigging up at the launch

We caught trout:

Some of the trout were really big:

Two scoops!

There was an incredible Baetis hatch mid afternoon. A few trout were rising on the flats, but we were too cold and wet to rig up 5X and small dries. Did I mention it was really cold and wet today?

We kept catching trout:

I think it would be hard to go wrong on the Sac right now. Trout on eggs, trout on dries, hardly any people, Lots of Bald eagles, big flocks of wintering ducks, miles of river with hardly any people, lots of big trout....See you on the river! Matt.

[nightgoat]

Those are some nice looking fish! Did you float through the bridge construction? Just curious how the navigation through there is. I've been jonesing to hit it but hesitant to take my boat through there due to some of the stories I've heard about difficult conditions.

[matt johnson]

Hi nightgoat,

We we above the bridge construction areas in a jet boat.

There are still two bridges under construction. The Hwy 44 bridge and the Cypress Street bridge. The "Posse to Bonnyview" float will take you through both of them.

I don't think the Hwy 44 zone is that bad, but Cypress freaks me out. I would not do it unless you are very experienced on the oars.

One optional float you can do is Posse to Kutras lake. On this float you only have to go through Hwy 44. Or you can just put in at Bonnyview and not worry about the bridges. This time of year you just have to be mindfull of any turbidity caused by the tributaries. Send me a pm if you are planning on coming up or call the Flyshop for a report on the river conditions. Matt.

[Bill Kiene semi-retired]

Thanks Matt

The Lower Sac is an amazing wild Rainbow trout fisheries with the largest average size fish in any California stream or river.

People fish it year round too.

[Notch]

Cool report MJ. Looks like the Sac bows' are still thinking about eggs even with the low numbers of late-fall.

That jet boat set-up with oars looks pretty sweet. I don't think you can fish the Sac any more effectively than that.

[lynnwhite44]

I fished the lower sac saturday and Sunday. The fishing was pretty good from Jellys Ferry Bridge to Bend. Best flies for this section were rubber legs, red copperjohns and small olive may fly. Tried an egg pattern with no success.

I have fished the posse to bonnyview float about 6 times through the bridge construction sites. Our sixth time through the Cypress construction they added another piling to make the passage even more narrow and I almost broke our Clackacraft in half. We entered the construction zone going forward, we pinballed around under the bridge and came out the other end going backwards. I won't fish that section in our driftboat again till they are done with the cypress bridge.

[nightgoat]

Thanks Matt and Lynn. Guess I will be avoiding the Cypress bridge till they finish the construction.

Joe