Lower Sac Fly Fishing Report

Anthony Carruesco, AC Fly Fishing

Spring weather is here and the status of fishing on the Lower Sac has been bumped to Excellent. We’ve had some great days out on the water recently. Daytime temperatures have been in the high 70s, boat traffic has been light and the fish have been eager. Despite the lack of hatches, the rainbows have been aggressive to our bugs. With the temperatures forecasted to get up into the 80s in the coming weeks i’m expecting the Caddis, March Browns and PMDs should start to come off thick. This should provide for some dry fly as well as some bomber nymph fishing. These three bugs will drive the fishing through March and well into May. The best days are still ahead of us. Come and get some.

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Dave Neal, Reel Adventures Guide Service

The Lower Sac is beginning to ripen up nicely and enter its spring bloom. It’s worth planning a trip soon to fish the Lower Sac for March/April…

 I’ve spent the last two weeks floating different sections of the river from the Posse Grounds in Redding, to the Bend Bridge. It’s been refreshing spending time on this amazing river after a long steelhead season. I welcome trout season with flip-flops, swim trunks, and T-shirts (the weather has been that nice!!).

 The springtime caddis are getting more active and each day. The upper riffles of the river (Redding area) are your best bets if you want to fish the caddis events. The caddis migration should only get better in the coming week and maybe we’ll even fish some dries soon?

 The usual suspects including eggs patterns (of course) and rubber legs along with dark caddis pupa should be mainstay patterns. We should begin to see the potpourri of aquatic bugs this river is famous for in the coming weeks. I’ve also witnessed more mayfly activity and this should increase in the coming weeks…

 Water clarity is about 3-5 feet and I have found that to be pretty much the case the entire river at least down to Bend Bridge. It’s somewhere in a green shade right now, and seems to fluctuate from day-to-day…

 The big rain events that occurred this winter changed a few spots along the river, which is always cool to see. There are new trees down, especially as you get further below Anderson and into Tehama County. Cottonwood Creek got pretty big during that last rainstorm!! We also noticed some driftwood pinned into some branches of an overhanging tree… about 20 feet above the river!!!  This was below Massacre Flat and a reminder of the insane volume of water that the river carried this winter.

 I have 4 days open this month March 23, 24, 25, 26, and 8 days still available in April 16-19, 23, 24, 29, 30.