Far Northern California Fly Fishing Report

Dave Neal, Reel Adventures Guide Service

Two words for Nor-Cal and Southern Oregon fly fishers… Get Outside! It’s the middle of May… do you know where your wading boots are?

 Simply put… it’s an angler’s blank canvas with pretty much every fishery in northern California holding potential over the next few weeks. It’s all beginning to happen: salmonflies, golden stoneflies, caddis, drakes, pmd mayflies. These gifts should only get better in the near future…

 If you do not have plans to go fly fishing (as much as possible) in the next 6-8 weeks you might be missing some of the best dry fly fishing for trout of the entire season.

The Upper Sac, Lower Sac, Pit River, McCloud River, Hat Creek and Fall River are all worth a visit… along with numerous smaller streams in between. There’s no runoff to speak of and late summer flows are happening right now - providing great early season wading conditions on many of our freestone rivers and streams.

 Spring weather continues this week with cooler temps, rain and even snow in isolated areas in the Redding and Inter-Mountain regions. Pack a raincoat and an extra layer and embrace the unpredictable weather. Trout and bugs love this kind of frenetic weather…

Tuesday we saw a drizzle of snow over Hatchet Mt Pass on Hwy 299 near Burney. Mt. Shasta has been enveloped in clouds all week (who knows what those Lemurians are up to?). Savor these moments now – the “dog days” of summer come quickly– soon we shall have forgotten how good it was back in May.

My open dates are:

• May 18-21
  
• June 1, 2, 8, 15, 16, 30