Why we fish the Upper Sacramento River

[pgw]

What the Upper Sac needed was the current gear and take restrictions that went into place when the river opened up again after the spill...if I could find the engineer of the train that caused the spill, I'd shake his hand because without that spill, the entire river would still be a put-n-take fishery where the limit was still 10 a day regardless of what type of bait, lures, or flies were used.

Paul

[Clark]

As someone who fishes the Upper Sac fairly often (at least for not living there), this is not something I think we need to be concerned about.

The city plants those within city limits and pretty much within maybe 1-1.5 miles. While there are a few stretches that don't get overwhelming pressure, most of the river through town gets absolutely pounded by gear folks - and they keep their catch. I doubt that there are too many wild trout in town to impact or that these bigger fish will have much of an effect. I was surprised to hook one in a fast pocket, however, as I've seen most of them come from a couple of big pools.

Edit: Looks like Clark beat me to it. That puppy looked like a shark when he was bringing it in.

Yeah. KJE the poor bastard. He takes me up to there for my first time, and I immediately hook this thing while he's still rigging up. I think I made him go get my net for me too. I'm a bad friend. If it helps, I didn't catch a fish over 13" the rest of the trip. I guess the Dunsmuir Economic Stimulous Package can only help a guy so much.

[jbird]

Pellet heads have no place on such a pristine river....

Triploids are incapable of breeding. Their impact on a fishery is minimal unless they out compete wild fish for food. Unlikely in a healthy stream environment.

[Clark]

The CA DF&G has reported to us that after about 2 weeks all hatchery planted fish in streams are gone? I guess they are caught by anglers or eaten by preditors.

Lake are a different story....they do well there.

I would argue this is not true. Every year the small stream in front of my cabin is stocked with rainbows and browns the week before the Fourth of July. Lots of these fish are still around come late October. This is despite the fact the river gets hammered by catch and keep anglers and the fish tend to school-up in fairly shallow pools making them easy prey for birds and other predators. However, they don't seem to be in the river the following spring. I have always attributed this to shallow freezing water, and massive snowpacks followed by extreme runoff. Anyone else have any ideas why these fish don't stay in the river year round? I am pretty sure they are not triploids.