Fished Upper Sac this past WED/THU/SAT and the McCloud FRI. Ah-Di-Na was fairly full, saw lots of cars, but surprisingly didn’t run into many other fisherman on either river!
Upper Sac: Fishing was good - mostly 10 to 14 inchers, and a few that went 18 inches. Medium sized bugs in general worked the best – size 14/16. Tiny bugs – specifically mayfly and caddis nymphs 18 or smaller worked 2nd best. Rubberlegs worked in the very fast/turbulent stuff. Golden stones out in good numbers, I did better on yellow sally dries, then on bigger stoneflies.
McCloud: some locals told flows had just been pulsed, but it didn’t affect fishing too much. Clarity wasn’t perfect, but just fine for fishing – to me it was just regular McCloud fishing. Dark colored bugs in medium sizes worked the best – but the bugs and relative size are similar to the Upper Sac (the only difference was that we focused on really dark colors).
Helpful tips:
· We wet waded both rivers, but we are aggressive hikers and we move a lot. While on the Upper Sac, we drove down to locations to find other cars and fisherman, but we always had other locations to go to. Twenty plus? miles of river, we drove to lots of locations and moved quite a bit.
· Focus on mornings and evenings if you are not the type that is willing to put in the long hours or full days, and focus on the whitewater if you’re going to fish while the sun or temps are high. We changed tactics and bugs quite often – the top producer for us was the no bobber/tightline tactic.
· Bring mosquito repellent and be extra careful touching your terminal stuff …. we got torn up while getting ready in the parking lot, not really while on the water.
· Bring your staff – we all had variations of spiked wading books, but we used the wading staffs heavily – we saw a couple of rattlers. They will avoid you in general, but doesn’t hurt to tap the shade under a rock or the brush before you walk through it.
· Lots of poison oak on the McCloud, be prepared.
In general the fishing was great. The best advice I can share – stop in and “support local” at Ted Fay for current info, and hire Fred Gordon or Wayne Eng (if they are available). We were able to hire Wayne for a day and it was worth every penny.
www.fredgordon.net
Bookmarks