Upper Sac-Ku, touch of evil 5-16-2015

[alpen glow]

Upper Sac-Ku; Touch of Evil 5-16-2015

Above the loop,
river rush and froth. Stirring,
fins golden dart.

Spots black, red and
haloed. Sudden jolts, viscous shake.
Back into the depths.

Dry and dropper,
today, I a bit evil.
To hand, a rivers annals.

I never really liked to fish this one section of the Upper Sac, its stunningly beautiful, but I have never really done that well catching. After working with Chris for the day Friday making ferrules in his shop, I took Saturday morning to visit this section above Cantara Loop. Its tough going, but the spots are nice. Often the accessible reaches get fished often. This morning there was a fellow leaving the spot I was headed to, I thought well give it a go, he’s different, doesn’t mean anything, I’ll be fishing different from him, just give it a shot. After getting into the “secret spot” its evident from the stud marks on the rock faces that it’s not secret, I started to rig up a 4wt cane rod. Watching the water for bugs and clues, a few golden stones flew over so I went for that, plus out of a whim I decided, a touch of evil was needed today, a dropper stonefly nymph that I’ve had good luck with on the Yuba from the days I used to nymph fish a lot. Upon the third or forth cast out into the middle bucket of the cascade, the large stimulator violently jolted back into the fast water and I set up! A few minutes later, what I was leading to the net was a very large Brown trout. The throat of my net is 20 inches and I guess she was 18 inches. Fishing alone I got this kind of crappy proof of life picture with the cascade behind. Any local will know where it is to verify. I seem to remember that Brown trout a very rare in the Upper Sac, maybe the McCloud being blown and turbid last year encouraged some to spawn in the upper reaches? Maybe she came over Lake Siskiyou one spring? Who really knows but Hope you enjoy this story and picture.

http://tonysalpenglow.blogspot.com/2...h-of-evil.html

[DLJeff]

Fishing the wooden stick with flat sides - nice.

[Frank Alessio]

Very nice...Good Job...

[Pupa]

How cool to catch a brown on the Upper Sac - nice job! I had a similar experience on Pit 4 several years ago. It was fall and the weather was miserable the action was slow. In a state bordering on apathy, I swung my hare's ear through a deep hole with cloudy water. To my complete astonishment, a large loch leven brown torpedoed from the depths and annihilated my fly. I managed to land him and he taped at 22". What an exciting and unexpected moment. I too wondered how common browns were on other lake shasta feeders besides the mccloud. I would be curious to know if anyone else has had any similar experiences.

[EricO]

Yep, about 3 years ago I was fishing Pit 3 in miserable weather. Drifted a rubberlegs
through a nice deep pool and pulled out a 19" brown. Before that, probably 6 years prior
I caught a 15" brown on Pit 4 right at dusk on a stimmie.

I've been fishing the Pit for almost 10 yrs at least 3x a year....tells you how rare it is.

EO